The Contract
by Laily
Summary: An awkward dinner party brings Doctor Stephen Strange and Loki together, ill-at-ease with one another, but still they seek the company of each other, being the odd ones out. One wakes up somewhat rested, the other in the worst pain of his life. Warnings: contains mpreg, mention of pro-choice, protective!thor, fluff
1. Chapter 1

"STRANGE!"

The door to his hotel room burst open at the hinges.

A low breath escaped the sorcerer's lips that had long since twisted involuntarily in dismay; these beings from another realm, brandishing thunder and hailstorms in their stupid capes and horns, could do well to remember that the Earth was no longer the backwater planet it used to be centuries ago and at least have the decency to knock-

"Thor, son of Odin." Stephen drew his robes closer and cinched them at his waist with harried gestures that Thor would hopefully interpret as exasperation and sheer irritation at having been so rudely awakened at- 4 a.m.? Good _GOD_. "And good morrow to you too."

Thor was looking very upset for some reason. "It's about Loki."

At the mention of the Trickster God, Stephen's blood ran cold. Anthony Stark had booked the entire floor of the hotel just for the occasion and despite having the pick of any room, Thor and Loki were sharing a suite further down the hallway. _Thor couldn't know, could he?_

Stephen cleared his throat.

"What has he done now?"

"Something is wrong with Loki." Thor was very tense, if the white-knuckled fists by his side were of any indication. As if something had caught his hearing, he cocked his head and visibly stiffened.

Thor's eyes darkened and his next words were soft, almost scared. "Very wrong."

Now that Stephen was paying attention, he realised what it was he had been hearing drifting through the hallway the past few minutes; that keening, groaning sound, a muffled white noise he had nonchalantly put down to some harmless mechanics of the pipes within the walls.

"-he woke with such terrible pains in his belly-"

His senses sharpened, his memory stirred. It was a familiar sound, reminiscent from his stint as a general surgeon before his subspecialisation in neurosurgery, days of long ago spent fiddling with patients' gangrenous bowels and bleeding ulcers and perforated things.

Acute abdomens certainly were one the most painful human afflictions mankind could suffer from, and the sounds Loki was making from his room reminded Strange of such malady.

"-saw you two talking at dinner last night and he did not seem to mind your company," Thor rambled. "I was hoping it was you he had left the party with, which would mean he trusted you somewhat, which would mean I'd at least made the right decision to seek your assistance- "

Stephen felt his eyebrows quiver in irritation

"Will you help him?" Thor's plea was subdued in his distraction. _Please_. Stephen could read the sheer desperation creasing deep lines between the Thunder God's eyes.

He was not all sure if it was the doctor or the sorcerer in him that answered.

"Of course."

* * *

"Brother!"

Before Stephen could stop him, Thor dropped his weight onto the edge of the bed with all the grace of a white rhinoceros, jarring the bed violently, and just as Stephen had suspected and feared, Loki threw his head back and screamed.

Aghast, Thor recoiled and once more, Stephen was too slow to stop him from jumping off the bed, and the rocking movement again brought forth another cry of agony from the figure on the bed

"Don't!" Strange palmed the Thunder God's broad shoulder and physically shouldered him out of the way. "Don't-JOSTLE him, Thor!"

Thor bristled with either indignation or more likely guilt, but concern for his brother won over his stubbornness and he backed away. "I would have taken him to New Asgard but I could not move him without causing him terrible pain...as you can see."

"Yes, I can see." Strange waved his hand apologetically. "I had a hunch. If this is what I think it is, any jarring movement would greatly exacerbate the pain." And that was probably why Loki was lying there on the bed, as still as a corpse. He certainly looked like one.

He hoped Thor would not push him to explain further, for if he found elaborating on the pathophysiology and symptomology of peritonitis to Viking Gods from outer-space even remotely interesting, he would have opted to become a lecturer, not a surgeon.

An armchair materialised alongside the bed and Stephen sat down carefully, his thighs in line with his patient who was lying supine and unmoving, face tight with poorly-concealed distress. Loki had definitely looked better. Strange felt the first stirrings of concern and he did not like it.

"Show me."

"It is as you wish it, Sorcerer." Loki's breath whistled past parched, bloodless lips. "I feel I am not long for this world."

"Brother!" Stephen ignored Thor's horrified hiss and the looming great presence hovering over his shoulder. He focused on Loki.

"Show me where," Stephen growled.

Loki's hand drifted to his belly, sliding under the slip of the same tunic Stephen had last seen him wear before they parted ways just mere hours ago. He watched as Loki carefully placed his hand on the area below his navel.

"When did it start?" He hoped the unspoken words were clearly written in his eyes. _You were perfectly fine last night._

Loki remained silent.

"Any food or drink you shouldn't have taken?"

Alarmed, Thor's posture straightened to ramrod stiffness. He furiously searched his memory of the night before.

It had been a small gathering, a celebratory dinner of some sort to congratulate Tony Stark on his upcoming nuptials; although Thor did wonder why the beautiful Lady Pepper did not partake in something as important as her betrothed's 'Stag Night'. Sure, all the (male) Avengers were there…and there was the human wizard Doctor Strange, whose contribution in the war against Thanos and the Black Order had been invaluable to the point Stark had considered them almost friends.

Thor could not imagine any of his friends morally capable of attempting to murder Thor's brother…or were they? After all Loki had done, the lengths he had gone to on the battlefield and off it to prove himself a foe no longer but an ally? Could Loki have been poisoned?

Before Thor could give voice to the disturbing thought, Loki heaved a gusty breath that could pass as a bark of laughter on one of his better days. A few strands of sweat-soaked hair refused to leave his lips, as if plastered to the tiny fissures at the cracked corners of his mouth.

Strange looked at him blankly, for he was never one to roll his eyes.

Loki ate the exact same thing Strange did. Which was not a whole lot. Drinks however…were aplenty.

He steadfastly avoided the sorcerer's gaze.

"Any vomiting?"

"Bleeding from anywhere, from any orifice in your body?"

"Blood in your urine, or stools?"

"Feeling feverish at all?"

"Light-headedness, feeling faint that sort of thing?"

Loki flicked his wrist 'no' to all the questions, but when Stephen half-thinkingly made to grab the wrist in mid-air, he drew it away out of range reflexively.

"I assume you will permit me to touch you at some point?" Stephen tried hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice for it was a moot point at that too, seeing there was no deliberate exchange of consent issued between them the previous night. And Loki knew it too, so Stephen would not hold this against him; he may just be in extreme pain as his brother had so claimed.

"Loki, let him touch you." Loki managed a feverish roll of his glassy eyes. Stephen drew his gaze away from Loki for a fraction to glare at the big, blonde buffoon behind him.

Thor did not waver. "Brother, _please_ let him help you."

Loki closed his eyes and reluctantly held out one hand in implied consent, the other still protectively clasped to his lower stomach.

Feeling for and assessing Loki's pulse once he had found it, he did not like what he was seeing. Thready and way too fast, for any species, human or otherwise. Loki's hand was ice-cold, his palm so white his nails were almost blue. If Loki were human, Stephen could certainly say with confidence that Loki was going into shock.

He could feel his own heart begin to race.

"Please describe the pain for me," Stephen murmured. After a long moment of silence-

"Unacceptable." Loki could hardly speak.

"As helpful as ever, I see." Stephen sighed.

Thor growled. "Strange."

"Fix him, yes, yes." The sorcerer studied his patient's pallid face, breaths so shallow his ribcage barely lifting off his chest. He gestured towards Loki's midsection, the area which seemed to give the most trouble. "May I?"

The look of terror on Loki's face lasted for a split second before the mask of indifference resettled over his features. His eyes calmed and before long, they fluttered to a close, as if unwilling to watch himself give in. His hand fell away from his stomach. "I am all yours, Sorcerer."

"I'm just going to have a feel, let me know if I'm causing any discomfort." A beat. " _Further_ discomfort."

Loki only snorted delicately at the irony, his forehead wrinkled in fearful apprehension.

Strange murmured a spell to ensure his hand was warm and comfortable before probing Loki's abdomen gently, starting away from the pain, but as his fingers neared the lower region of his belly, he could feel Loki's abdominal muscles tense beneath his palm. "Take a deep breath and try to relax, Loki."

Relax, huh. _Bah_. If Loki survived this, he was going to stab somebody. Strange, most likely. Thor even, rekindled brotherly love or not. The Avengers too, just _because_. He was feeling particularly generous, no one should miss out on experiencing this for themselves, this vicious, stabbing, unrelenting, gut-wrenching, excruciating spasms of pai-

"It's gone." Loki opened his bleary eyes. The pain was gone.

The abrupt cessation of the blazing inferno of agony swept clean the fog from his mind like a clear breeze parting the clouds o'er a cinematic horizon.

Loki's seiðr awakened in slow, gentle waves.

"Truly, brother?" Thor boomed, his breaking smile brighter than a thousand suns. "Loki, you are cured of what ails you?"

Loki stared at the foreign hand palming his now quiet abdomen. _What healing magic is this?_ "Strange, what did you do?"

Thor's immense relief at his brother's unexpectedly swift recovery dampened at the look of foreboding on the sorcerer's face. "Strange?"

The man's face had gone pale. When seconds passed and he did not blink, Thor took a few steps closer. He could see the hand still laid flat on Loki's bare stomach, but there was a strange look in the Sorcerer Supreme's eyes, a distant, faraway gaze that seemed to see nothing and everything-

Thor tentatively reached out a hand onto the sorcerer's shoulder. "Stephen?"

"Ah." Strange pursed his lips.

He was understanding it now.

"No…" Loki whispered.

Apparently so was Loki.

With a vicious snarl, he struck Strange's hand away from his solar plexus and with what little strength renewed after the too-brief respite, he curled up onto his side and pressed his knees to his chest, bargaining for the widest berth between him and the insufferable human magic wielder with his clever hands.

 _Clever hands, clever lips, and cleverer tongue. Damn damn damn_

"Brother, I do not want him here," Loki seethed, his teeth bared. It was coming again, he realised. The beast with its gaping maw.

Strange studied the impression Loki's head had left on the sweat-soaked pillow, the jet-black hair plastered to the tremulous curvature of his back, the gangly arms now circling around his waist. Waves of pain radiated off the man like thick, red smog.

"Thor, please give us a moment."

Thor's single eye shone a bright, fierce blue. "No. I will not leave my brother."

"Thor…" A single tear dewed along Loki's lash line as he fought vainly against the clawing agony once again tearing through his lower torso, dredging deep into his pelvis. There was simply no escape. But there was no way, _absolutely_ no way he was surrendering to this human mage again-

His teeth chattered. "Brother, get him out!"

"Thor, either you march outside right now and give us some privacy, or I will drop you into a portal, destination unknown."

Torn between acquiescing to his brother's hysterical demand and the threat of being plummeted into an eternal abyss, electricity began to bristle along the back of his neck and down his arms. Thor looked at Strange helplessly.

Strange always appeared eternally impassive, his cool and calm demeanour bordering on infuriating at times, but Thor would not mistake the smouldering fire in his grey eyes as anything but the most primitive human demand in the wake of dilemma. _TRUST ME._

Thor gave him an imperceptible nod, his jaw set. Strange could sense him simply _dying_ to say something to his bull-headed little brother, but he guessed no appeasing words were worth risking Loki's wrath right now.

The door closed none too gently behind him. A split second later, the walls shuddered and shook with a sudden roar.

"Now see what you have done. Everyone's probably awake now."

Loki heard the words, but the rush of blood in his ears blunted the sorcerer's insipid mockery to muffled wisps of whisper and smoke and nothingness

 _Please_

Loki steeled himself not to scream as the invisible pitchfork stabbed him again and again, working to disembowel him from inside. But he knew now, the source of this wretched, atrocious pain…the flashing images of Strange's smug, smug face as he claimed him deep and hard - oh you _beauty!_ \- his damaged human hands so weak yet so slick with magic and talent as he prised Loki's thighs apart- _What Loki wants Loki gets and still Loki draws_

"-the short _fucking_ STRAAW!" So much for not screaming, and _bless_ , black spools of unconsciousness pulled him under. Finally.

* * *

When Loki came to, the hand was back again on his belly. The euphoria made him stupid and not only did Loki put his own hand on top of it, he let out a sigh in contentment.

Strange raised an eyebrow that simply meant, _back in the land of the living, are we?_

Neither acknowledging nor ignoring him, Loki concentrated solely on the magic sifting through his fingers, feeling it mingle with Stephen's soothing energies and sending inquiring nudges to tweak his rebellious body to reveal its secrets.

He had no inkling of how much time he had lost, but the pulse of new life nestled inside him was stronger now. He might as well be a fledgling magician for all the good his healing spells did him. He could not comprehend why his seiðr could do nothing to alleviate the pain. Now he knew.

If Loki could sense it, then Strange could sense it too. He was just better at hiding it. Or coping in general.

Loki thought no words more mundane could ever pass the sorcerer's lips but Strange managed to make himself sound marginally clever- "It is not possible."

 _Darling, you have no idea what's possible_.

Curiously, the words echoed in Loki's mind in Hela's voice. The sharp outline of his Adam's apple bobbed as Loki tried to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat.

"I am fifteen hundred years old, Strange. I am more than aware of the dangers of unprotected intraspecies and interspecies coitus."

Strange frowned. The doctor in him had been looking for something physical, some organic source of pain he could easily incise or excise, holes he could close, bleeding he could stop…but then again, looking at his healing hand steadfast and not trembling for once and on Loki's suprapubic region no less, that he finally noted. It was where the human bladder sat. And where human women kept their lady bits.

"So what you said last night, about my not having to worry about taking you-"

"Was true." _Or should have been_. Loki wanted to laugh.

The clammy hand that kept Strange's own firmly pressed on Loki's belly lifted slightly as if daring the sorcerer to remove it. It remained, and the absence of pain was blissful. Loki reached up to cup his eyes. "I should have known."

"Known… _what_." Strange was angry. Loki could feel Stephen's anger seep through his pulsating fingers and lick its strange fire deep into the layers of his abdomen to soothe and burn his insides at the same time. It was a peculiar sensation.

"I should have known to reinforce my…contraceptive spells the moment it occurred to me that I was about to receive _you_." Loki gritted through his teeth. "The Sorcerer Supreme."

 _Idiot idiot idiot idiot_

"Ah." Strange pursed his lips. "You thought I was just another average Midgardian looking for a quick extra-terrestrial lay."

"Your words, Strange. Not mine."

Strange looked at his hand resting on Loki's abdomen, still steadily dispensing the numbing tendrils of magic and he idly wondered what human drug could match it in its potency. His magic was one of chaos and to tease its workings to unravel the knots of green seiðr intertwined with the unruly golden threads of his own magic from seizing Loki's insides in a perpetual clamp of excruciating pain was unfamiliar territory, but he supposed he was doing it right. Loki had not uttered a whimper upon their first skin-to-skin contact. Well. _Not first. Second today. Third ever._

Something shifted beneath his palm, and his magic flared like a spark doused in lighter fluid on its own volition. Loki's sudden sharp intake of breath stilled the flame and it receded.

"Did you try to erase it from existence just now as we speak?"

"I did. Try." The shuttered look in Loki's eyes was the closest thing to panic Strange had seen since all this…bizarreness started.

"You tried." He decided to probe further. "But you couldn't?"

"Why do you think your hand is still on my belly at all, Strange?" Loki managed to string through the scathingly rhetorical question without parting his teeth, his jaws clenched so tight.

"And did you not think to seek my opinion before making such life-changing decision on your own?"

"Life-changing…decision?" Loki murmured. He was still wracking his brain for a spell, any spell that could set him free of all this mess- "What are you on about?"

Strange seethed inwardly at how genuinely confused Loki managed to sound.

"Did you not think to include me in the discussion you had in your head with yourself?"

"It is _my_ body, sorcerer. I shall do with it whatever the Hel I wish."

"You are with child, Loki." Saying it out loud did not downplay the entire situation and render it less overwhelming but the status quo of it all grounded Strange enough somewhat to say his piece.

"Now it might escape your attention but unless our 'subpar' Midgardian alcohol as you so eloquently put it has so compromised not only your memory in your state of inebriation, but also your exceptional magic prowess that you are spectacularly failing to see that we-this-" Stephen curled his fingers around the taut flesh of Loki's abdomen slightly as his voice trailed.

"I can see just fine, Strange," Loki said quietly.

"We created this, Loki."

"We created nothing. It just happened. There is a difference." The scoff was meant to sound derisive but it came across shaken, frightened.

"Semantics changes not what it is, Loki."

"You cannot possibly be attached to this, Strange." Loki's green eyes, bright with the memory of pain, gaped in disbelief. "There is simply no reason for you to be."

"For someone so old, are you truly an ignoramus or simply full of yourself?"

"I _beg_ your pardon." Loki's voice chilled to match the sudden drop in room temperature.

"Do you even know why it is causing you so much pain?"

"Oh, please do enlighten me, Doctor. I am afraid the pain has made me stupid."

"No need for hysterics now, Loki."

"I should have killed you when I had the chance-"

"What, before or after you passed out in my bed?"

If Loki's eyes were daggers, Strange could very well be dead, but alas they were not. They were pretty, though.

He sighed heavily. "It is a magical being, Loki. Born of magic, albeit of two different natures with different temperaments, distinct energy signatures. They cannot mix. The magical malunion is what is tearing you apart."

"But it shouldn't." Real fear tinged Loki's voice. His cold fingers curled unconsciously, his nails scraping against the back of Stephen's hand. "I have borne, and _lost_ children of magic before but never quite so painfully."

Strange was quiet. "You are not losing the child. We have only entered a magical contract and _unknowingly_ signed it without discussing the terms and conditions."

He could see Loki rolling his eyeballs behind his closed eyes, the vein on the lids stark blue against the pallor of his skin. " _That's_ your explanation?"

"The analogy works."

"So… since we have inadvertently sired it by a stroke of accidental miscalculation, all we need to do now is reach a consensus about what to do with it? Accept it or reject-" A wince. "Not accept it?"

"The child is not an it, Loki."

"Answer the question, Strange."

Long minutes passed in silence. Sunlight was breaking; the first rays slithered through the blinds and cast stripes over his face, its warmth a blessed welcome. Loki cocked his head, his own thoughts fleeting away from him like a runaway train, as he studied the sorcerer's stony façade. Strange was but the one person he could not read, and he found it both intriguing and extremely vexing.

"What feelings do you have for this _child_ , who is yet to have a form of his own?"

"You ask me that and yet you seem to have developed feelings of your own." Stephen's heart skipped a beat. He searched Loki's face in unabashed wonder. "It is a he?"

"You do not want this." Loki's voice was soft, laced with a tenor of uncertainty.

Strange was quiet for a while. "I did not sign up for it, yes. But what happened between us happened. Fates must have willed it so."

"You are no fatalist, Doctor." Green eyes darted wildly as if struck by a sudden epiphany. "You control _time_."

"Please do not insult me further by suggesting I undo anything lest we invite catastrophe into our midst as you very well know it could."

With his free hand, Strange pinched his forehead between his thumb and forefinger as if calculating the impact of his next words. "It is _because_ I am a Time Wielder that every decision I make, everything I do is as sure to my whole-hearted will as is set in stone. For there is no turning back. No matter the consequences."

All it needed was an awkward dinner to lead to false pleasantries and awkward conversation to turn into something akin to alchemy and the rest was history.

"You do not know me, Strange," Loki articulated slowly. All of a sudden Stephen felt somewhat chastised, as if he were a toddler.

"You are right. I do not."

"You have seen the monster that I am."

"What monster that you were, yes. Like I said, no changing the past."

"You _cannot_ want this," Loki reiterated in disbelief.

"I am beginning to understand why people find you hard to be around, Loki." Strange dead-panned. "You allow no one to exercise autonomy over one's own thoughts and actions."

Loki winced inwardly. Yeah…now that he thought about it, he did get that a lot. He had discovered that it seemed to make everything simpler by nature. _Is not this simpler?_

"You do not even know what you feel for me." It was the alcohol that did it. Weak Midgardian alcohol. Something in the water. Something in the air. Whatever it was that made last night happen.

"There is sentience in feelings, Loki." He heard Stephen murmur under his breath, and his own hesitant breath caught in his throat as Stephen's other hand reached up to trace the outline of his temple.

"It lives, it dies." His gentle thumb flicked the wetness away from the tired corner of Loki's eye.

"And it grows."

Stunned, Loki could do nothing but stare.

"What do I do?" He whispered.

"Do rephrase that question, my dear." Snarky Strange was back, the term of endearment uttered completely devoid of tenderness, but his grey eyes were soft and gentle. Loki took the deepest and longest breath he could.

"What do we do?"

"Well. Sudden acts of madness and impulsivity aside, there is no mode of action more suited to this sort of delicate situation than facing it head on and taking it one at a time. The way we humans usually do it, we often try very hard to break the news to the next-of-kin, gently or not it is your choice of course-" Stephen pointedly looked at the door. And sighed heavily. "We have to get past the door at some point."

"Thor is a very large door-stopper. He wouldn't budge."

"Yes…I suspect as much." Stephen's eyes drifted upward to search the ceiling. There were more voices now outside the room. "Should I portal us somewhere?"

"Like this?" Loki waved his hand down the length of his body where Stephen's hand might as well be a permanent appendage- "for the next one year, give or take a few months?"

At Stephen's inquiring gaze, Loki shrugged. "I can never tell. Until it's time. Time is funny, depending on what I'm carrying."

"So…we have reached a…" Stephen's lips curved involuntarily at the edges. "Consensus?"

"A bit too late to backtrack on the contract, don't you think."

"And we hereby agree that we make every decision pertaining to the child together?"

"What, like where to send him to school or something?"

"Among other things." Stephen was dead serious.

"Seriously, Strange. As grateful as I am that I no longer feel like I'm being run through with a thousand swords, this cannot go on."

Stephen nodded. Loki could tell he was anxious, like he was itching to tap his fingers or crack his knuckles, his mind racing in never-ending circles.

"I am going to try something."

"Unification spells are volatile," Loki said warily. "To emulsify oil and water is one thing, but to meld your magic with my seiðr, it is not without risks."

"I am a Master of the Mystic Arts, you know. _THE_ Master." The words were arrogant, but the smile was genuine, softening his features. "I will not hurt you, Loki."

Loki's forehead wrinkled and he retorted, "I don't care about-"

"I will not hurt him."

"Alright." His mouth had suddenly gone very dry. There was a peculiar flutter in his left breast where his heart was. Loki's chest heaved. " _Alright_."

Golden tendrils of magic formed intricate mandalas in the air, the elemental energies forming a barrier between the outer world and within and suddenly both the Sorcerer Supreme's hands were pressing on his belly, warm and heavy.

And Loki emptied his mind, methodically clearing his thoughts and bracing himself for the onslaught of foreign magic, not knowing what to expect, more pain, a different sort of pain perhaps-

Stephen was barely audible and he hummed in a distant buzz and the words of an ancient spell breathed the incantation into life and life ceased to hurt and the pressure lifted and Loki could _breathe_ again.

"There."

Loki opened his eyes. Strange had retrieved both his hands and they were now tidily clasped in his lap.

"How do you feel?"

Loki listened to his body. Where there once was fire, it was now temperate and still and so pleasantly quiet. Something stirred deep inside him like the tip of an invisible finger touching water and it rippled. _Hello, there._

Strange watched as Loki gingerly raised his upper body into a sitting position. To his satisfaction, the God of Mischief had regained some colour and clarity had quickly returned to his eyes now that all traces of pain had left him, only weariness remaining.

"I do not hurt anymore." The unspoken relief in his eyes as he met Stephen's gaze was all the form of appreciation he was going to get.

Strange found that it did not matter. "I am glad."

Seconds ticked by. Loki stared at his stomach. If he looked at it long enough maybe this would all cease to be true and he would wake up in his bed with a hangover and a sweet aching between his legs as the only reminder of the night before.

Strange too was staring into space. It was not an uncomfortable silence but neither of them was particularly eager to address the elephant in the room.

"So. A year, huh."

"Hmm." Loki smoothed down the front of his tunic and fiddled with the hem.

Strange rubbed the pads of his thumbs together in thoughtful contemplation. When he finally spoke, he sounded resolute.

"I suppose a year is ample time for-"

"Not killing each other?"

"No-"

"An armistice?"

"NO, Loki. Good God, for someone so ancient you are awfully redundant."

Loki did not even deign to pretend he was insulted. He brushed his unruly hair away from his face and tucked it behind both ears before staring intently into Stephen's face, looking only mildly curious.

"Then what, pray tell, is a year long enough for?"

Stephen had always disliked looking directly into people's eyes. On a good day, he was probably just shy off the antisocial personality spectrum. Now Loki...Loki may be a god, with a nature so chaotic he was divine madness incarnate...so far from godly, farther still from saintly.

He could be dead in a year (if the theme of death and destruction Loki seemed so fond of could not be contained)...or he could be just fine and grateful that he took a chance.

So Stephen met those green eyes head-on.

"Courting you, of course."

Loki stared at him in stark bewilderment.

"I may look contemporary, but I am a traditionalist." Stephen suspected his half-jest placated more himself than Loki.

All attempts at dry humor abandoned, Stephen's eyes finally drifted to Loki's belly. His gaze intensified as if he had caught sight of something precious. Serendipitous. Something that also belonged to him.

"A year to get to know you two."

And when his hand reached out to touch, Loki's fingers were there to catch it. Stephen raised them to his lips and hesitated only for a millisecond, before kissing them softly, but surely.

Loki did not know whether to laugh or cry. So he did a bit of both.


	2. Chapter 2

Stephen glanced at Loki out the corner of one eye. "Have you eaten?"

A peculiar look settled over Loki's features as if puzzled by such an ordinary question but it only lasted a split second before he deigned to entertain it. "Yes. Toast."

Stephen would have accepted Loki's simple answer had it not been for the almost-imperceptible but unmistakable breath of a pause between the two words.

"I meant _today_ , smart-ass." Strange's side-glance had taken on a glint of sceptical exasperation. "Have you eaten anything, at all, _today_?"

Loki pursed his lips, looking somewhat impressed. The mortal magic man was getting better at reading between and behind his lines. Or maybe in his erratic bouts of weakness, Loki was just getting sloppy and letting his aches and pains and discomfort slip through the cracks.

He sighed heavily and said nothing. The meagre dry toast he had forced down for breakfast the day before was but a distant memory and impossible though he knew, Loki could swear it still sitting heavy in his stomach like a brick.

"No need to look so forlorn, darling," Stephen said lightly. "I was merely starting a conversation."

He watched as Loki took in a slow, deep breath. And another. And then another.

"In through the nose, and out the mouth." Stephen's voice was quiet, soothing. "Is the right way."

"Is that so." Loki gritted his teeth.

"Yes, you are doing it incorrectly. I can see your temporalis all the way from here." With a flourish of his robes, the sorcerer rose from his comfortable chair and glided across the room. Before Loki knew it, Stephen had positioned himself behind him and without warning, rested his fingers against Loki's throbbing temples.

Loki fought the urge to shake his head free but when the other man's fingers started to knead his temples in slow, measured circles, the involuntary shiver that ran down the back of his neck got the better of him and he shuddered.

"Stop clenching. Here." Stephen stressed again, pressing none too gently. "You will not get rid of the nausea that way, you will only gain a headache."

Loki hated being asked pointless questions, and he respected the sorcerer-doctor enough to not ask him one. As to how Strange even knew he was seconds away from emesis…well. Loki must have it written across his forehead or something.

"How did you get here? I hope you didn't teleport." Strange sounded almost scolding.

"I was in the neighbourhood," Loki muttered.

"Well, do just call in next time and I will come pick you up." From where Stephen was standing over Loki's head, he could see his long lashes fanning out, casting shadows over the stark white of the god's skin.

" 'Pick me up.' " Loki's lips twisted churlishly, more in distaste than disdain. "Really, Strange?"

"Shall I remind you that you still owe me some two hundred dollars of Midgardian money? I am sure you have seen the dry-cleaning bill I had delivered to the Stark Tower by way of post. It is under your name after all."

Under normal circumstances, teleporting should be nothing more than child's play to Loki, but his last attempt at it had induced a dizzy spell lasting for an hour, and the last thing Strange wanted was Loki tumbling down the steps or something and cracking his skull. Or worse. Like him upchucking all over Stephen's antique chaise longue. Again.

"I do run quite a spiffy Pick-a-Portal service," Stephen quipped lightly. " 'Anywhere, everywhere, I'll take you there.' "

Loki's lips barely twitched.

"Only the size of an almond and already causing me so much grief," Loki grumbled. There was simply no way around it. There was scarcely anything he could eat that would not turn his stomach inside out and after nearly a month of incessant post-prandial vomiting Loki had decided the hunger headaches were much more preferable than going through all the trouble of eating only to have everything reappear moments later.

"It is the least you can do, after we agreed to disagree on where the best lodging is for you in your current _condition_." Still not letting go of the subject, Stephen watched as Loki's lips curled further, obviously at Stephen's choice of word describing his predicament.

"You do have a phone. Don't you?" Stephen realised he had been doing quite a lot of wishful thinking ever since Loki had entered his life. "Or is the possession of such asinine Midgardian technology beneath you?"

"Thor has one now." Loki's smile was all-teeth and falsely sweet. "Call _him_. I'm sure he'd love to talk to you."

Thor. The force of nature given breath. The legends spoke in length of his might, his will, his divine powers, and _oh what powers they were_ \- The legends should not only have warned of his storms, his hammer…but what of his wrath? That should have been Thor's moniker. The God of Wrath. No one dared to lay a finger on Loki before.

And Stephen had gone and gotten Thor's precious brother with child.

Breaking bad news had never been his forte back in his doctoring days. And one would think expecting a baby could only be good news…right? But as fate would have it, Thor seemed to still be undecided about it. He had not been happy. Not with Loki, of course. Loki could do no wrong in Thor's eyes.

Thor had not been happy with Stephen.

 _No._ He would not relive the scene in his head. He had only just stopped getting nightmares about it.

If Stephen was a lesser mortal, he would be quaking in his boots even at the thought of seeing the God of Thunder again.

His fingers dug in deeper and his once-gentle massage escalated to a few pascals shy off vicious. But if Loki found it painful, he did not show it.

"Ravens."

Stephen felt himself tugged and thought he had misheard. "Hmm?"

"We had ravens." If Stephen was back in the moment, Loki was now a thousand miles away. "Back in Asgard. We had ravens to relay our messages for us."

"Father-" Loki's breath caught, the hitch so faint Stephen almost missed it. "Father kept two, Huginn and Muninn. We had eyes everywhere. Heimdall – peaceful be his soul in Valhalla – was the bane of my existence for centuries."

"Heimdall? Your…Watcher?"

"Our Watcher, yes. The most loyal, steadfast Guardian of Asgard, the Gatekeeper. He could see everything." Loki's eyes darkened as if reliving a distant, very unpleasant memory. "Well. Almost everything."

Loki wondered if he would ever come around to telling anybody about The Void, about his eternal fall…

About the one who broke his fall, and broke him.

His eyes cleared once more. Heimdall was only one of the names he had cried out in the end, once the unspeakable torment had become too great to bear. When he spoke next, his voice was soft, almost forgiving. "Nothing could get past him."

"Except you." There was no admiration in Stephen's voice. After all, he was only stating a fact.

A long moment of silence ensued before Loki finally gave an indifferent shrug. "They are all gone now. The birds too, I suppose. I never got around to finding out what had happened to them. I suppose if they were still alive, Thor could keep one, and I the other."

"I do not mean to offend but it sounds terribly inconvenient." Stephen wrinkled his nose.

Loki gave him a smile. It may be small, but it was genuine. "Oh, I agree. But a telephone is hardly exciting."

"Does it have to be? Necessities rarely are."

"Nothing needs to be exciting or boring. It is no matter. Not when I have my magic."

Uncomprehending, Stephen turned around and watched him curiously as Loki rearranged his limbs, changing his position from sitting to lying down on his back, his long legs bent slightly at the knees so they would not hang over the edge of the newly-cleaned chaise longue.

Loki then clasped both hands over his stomach and closed his eyes, as if readying to fall asleep. And when a few seconds passed where absolutely nothing happened, Stephen resisted the urge to snort his nose. Guess pregnant alien princes needed their kip once in a while. Who better to babysit over them than the Sorcerer Supreme?

Stephen was about to turn around and head for his desk where he could go back to poring over his books and brood when-

 _"I would like some tea."_

Loki's lips never moved, but Stephen heard the words, clear as day, and his eyebrows shot up.

Loki's eyes opened and his head turned sideways slowly, not unlike a puppet on a string. The glint of glee in his eyes was unmistakable.

 _"Do make it strong and black, please. None of the detestable chamomile or mint or whatever gentle tea you mortals think I should drink instead."_

"Thought transference." Stephen had to admit he was impressed. Yet another skill Loki felt compelled enough to share with him.

"I suppose your coverage is quite limitless? Do I have to take into account where I am if ever you feel the need to summon me, Your Highness?"

 _"As long as we are both on the same planet, there is no place I cannot reach you."_

"That is hardly fair." Stephen could not help but feel a tad slighted. Telepathy was notoriously difficult to accomplish, let alone a two-way conversation. "Do stay out of my head unless absolutely necessary."

"Strange, I can only talk into your mind. I cannot read it." The phonation now that Loki was speaking in his real voice stirred through the air with an undercurrent of hostility.

The frosty silence did not last long. Being the better man was a small price to pay, Stephen decided.

"Well. At least that solves the problem of not having magic ravens at your disposal anymore."

To his credit, Loki accepted the truce rather gracefully. His features softened and he opened his palm up toward his human wizard, gesturing him to come closer.

"As much as I would love the credit, I am afraid I am rather undeserving of it." Loki gazed into Stephen's face meaningfully and he smiled at nothing in particular. "This is not my doing."

The wistful look in the suddenly-gentle green eyes was not lost on Stephen, who slowly found himself sinking to one knee. Bracing a forearm against the cushion, he hesitatingly reached out a hand.

With a flick of his wrist, Loki's outer leathers disappeared, revealing a finely-tailored undershirt made of what suspiciously looked like cashmere.

Stephen must have hesitated for too long, for when Loki let out a sigh, it was tinged with deliberately-unconcealed irritation. "Anytime today, Doctor."

Stephen offered an apologetic smile before sliding his hand underneath Loki's shirt and resting it against the smooth plane of Loki's stomach. The ice-cold skin no longer surprised him, but when the heat of Stephen's hand met the hard, lean muscles of Loki's abdomen, he could feel the violent churning stirring under his palm.

Without thinking, Stephen dispensed a soothing wave of magic through his fingers and he watched with something akin to concern as Loki breathed in deeply through his nose.

"You should have told me you were still feeling ill."

Loki rolled his eyes that clearly meant, _as if I would ever._

Stephen did not know if it was the proximity, or if Loki had actually been wearing a glamor and decided to drop it, but he could clearly see the signs now. The pallid complexion of his skin, parched lips cracked in so many places, the sunken eyes, the lax skin turgor-

"Loki you are as dry as a bone." Stephen did not understand the anger he could sense beginning to brew under his skin. "Can you even keep water down?"

Loki remained stubbornly silent.

Stephen heaved a sigh. He supposed they were due for a change in subject.

"The size of an almond, you say?"

"Quite a noisy almond too." Loki raised a hand to the level of his eye and studied his palm. "He is quite vocal about the things he likes and dislikes."

"I take it he likes only toast and dislikes everything else?" Stephen's nose wrinkled in distasteful sympathy.

Loki nodded mournfully.

Stephen let out another sigh of frustration.

"Well…not all of everything else," Loki said placatingly. "He likes _you_."

"Of course he does." Stephen's heart lifted and he could feel the consternation melting away, if only momentarily. "He keeps bringing you back."

Loki's fingers played with Stephen's collar, unconsciously curling around the greying hairs at his temple. "Hmm."

"Have you really reconsidered, though? Like you promised you would?" There was Stephen's wishful thinking again. His hand stroked Loki's still-very-flat stomach gently, coaxingly. "Moving in here."

 _With me._

"The Sanctum isn't all that bad. It's got character," Stephen said lightly. "Sure, there is Wong, but that's the thing. There is only Wong. As compared to that overcrowded, overrated Avengers Tower that must be overrun by strangers by now, what with every Tom, Dick and Harry claiming to be some kind of superhero."

Loki nodded. How true.

"We don't even have to be in each other's company if we do not wish to be. Granted, there will be areas that are inaccessible unless you happen to be a Master of the Mystic Arts but you will otherwise have free rein of the place. Well. Within reason, of course-"

Stephen stopped. This was getting embarrassing.

Loki's voice was soft. "Go on. I like listening to you talk."

Unbeknownst to Loki, his hand had somehow stopped playing with Stephen's hair and was now cupping Stephen's chiselled cheek tenderly. It was the first real touch Loki had granted him ever since the night that sealed their fates together many weeks ago. This push and pull and push again was not a game to Loki, but Stephen must think it was-

 _This dance we do_

Oh yes, it may have started off as dance, as it had been with many others before him, but not now, not anymore, but Stephen must not know it for why else was Stephen looking at him like that?

Loki felt a lump grow in his throat when Stephen's hand stilled its movement before abruptly lifting off his belly. Stephen pried Loki's hand off the side of his face and leaped to his feet with a swish of his cloak.

"I'll get you your tea now-"

"I think I heard the door. It must be Thor-"

Loki swung his legs off the sofa, once again resplendent in his green and black leathers, his feet scrambling for purchase on the floor. "-must have come to p-pick me up."

 _"Whoops."_

Loki's incorporeal voice suddenly popped into Stephen's head, and it sounded breathless, which should be utterly ridiculous-

Stephen felt a brush of wind breeze past his ears and he felt suddenly lighter, as if a physical weight had lifted off his shoulders.

Loki's black hair spilling off the top of The Cloak of Levitation was the only part of him Stephen could see; the rest was engulfed in Stephen's sentient cape, wrapped around him like a cocoon.

The Cloak swiftly lifted Loki off his feet, carried him the few steps back towards the chaise longue and gently laid him out on the couch. When the Cloak wrapped itself around Loki's legs and elevated them so they were higher than the rest of Loki's body, the realisation finally dawned on Stephen.

Amazement and sheer pride for the absolute brilliance of his Cloak warred with the sick feeling of anxiety stirring in his gut.

"You fainted."

"I just…stood up too fast-that's all-"

"You stood up too fast and you fainted," Stephen said accusingly. "You have not been eating, you have not been drinking, and you bloody fainted and all I want is to take care of you and you wouldn't-"

Stephen balled his fists.

Loki's pallor was slowly being replaced by a more healthy rubor as the blood pooling in his legs rushed back towards his heart and his brain. Without letting go of his legs, The Cloak wrapped its other two ends around one of Loki's hands as if attempting to rub the life back into it.

"Brother!" Thor's voice boomed suddenly from behind him. Stephen immediately palmed his own face.

 _Great_. _Just great._

"What ails you now, Brother?" Thor dropped to his knees and his hands hovered in the air over Loki's prone body, afraid to touch. The Cloak of Levitation was obstructing much of his vision, the wondrous thing, still arduous in its ministrations.

Thor eyed it suspiciously. "Is this your doing, Sorcerer?"

"He had a syncopal attack, Thor. It is just a vasovagal reaction to being pregnant," Stephen answered snappishly.

Thor's glare could be as poisonous as Loki's if he put his mind to it. "So it is. _Your_ doing."

Stephen pinched his forehead, where a tension headache was fast forming. _Give a guy a break, will you?_

"He will be fine. Just give him a few minutes, he will come around."

"I'm taking him home."

"Thor, stop." A pale, bony hand shot out from between the folds of sentient cloth and grabbed the Thunderer's bicep. "I am alright."

"Loki, you are not well. Perhaps a visit to the healers?" Thor stopped in mid-sentence when Loki's hand released his arm only to blindly but effectively muzzle him, dangerously missing an eye by a nail's breadth.

"I just need to eat. And drink."

Finally satisfied with Loki's recovery, the Cloak gently released him from its smothering embrace and flew across the room to resettle around Stephen's shoulders, patting him on the chin with a flap of the collar. The Sorcerer Supreme leaned his cheek into it and whispered his thanks on a job well done.

Loki avoided all eye-contact as he allowed Thor to help him up.

"Your tea." Stephen had in hand all of a sudden a saucer and a teacup filled to the brim with steaming strong, black tea.

Loki only stared at the beverage proffered him a few moments too late for a few seconds too long, and the sorrow in his glassy green eyes only deepened the pangs of guilt and longing in Stephen's heart.

Loki's bodiless words rang hollow in Stephen's mind. _"Much appreciated_ , _my dear Doctor. But I think I shall take my leave now."_

But his bloodless lips moved all wrong. "Thank you kindly…but I think I'd rather have some toast."

How strange that two sentences that said completely different things could bear the exact same meaning.

Loki's glamor was in place once more and he looked picture perfect, not a hair out of place. And Stephen _hated_ it.

Thor was only too happy to oblige. "Come, Brother."

And within seconds, Stephen found himself all alone in the suddenly empty drawing room. He looked down at the cup of tea he did not realise he was still holding in his shaking hands and despite the urge to throw it into the wall and smash it into a thousand pieces – _just like his heart_ – he stopped.

He set the cup down carefully on the small lamp table and walked to the window. Drawing the curtains, he could see Thor, always the gentleman, opening the car door for Loki.

 _"Loki."_

Stephen concentrated again.

 _"Loki."_

The Ancient One had left him, left the world too soon, when there were still so many things she would have taught him had she not gone and died-

but it was not her fault.

 _"Loki."_

It was not Loki's fault Stephen Strange was a bastard with a stone for a heart and ice in his veins.

It was not Loki's fault that Thor loved him so deeply and now that every family and friend they knew had gone and died, Loki was the only thing Thor had left and that made Thor all the more reluctant to let Loki go just a little and let Stephen love him too-

 _"Loki."_

Loki's head whipped around so fast his eyes smarted against the bitter wind-

 _"Strange?"_

It was not Loki's fault Stephen was a fool and did not make his tea fast enough the moment he requested it.

Even through the tint of the stained-glass window from two storeys below, Loki's gaze locked onto his and the god stared up in wonder.

Stephen searched Loki's face as if looking for the right words to say, to beg for the right to be strong for Loki again. _"Powerful little almond, our little one."_

Loki's beatific smile was all the sign Stephen needed.

He touched two shaky fingers to his lips, and then touched them to the glass.

Loki stood awestruck.

Thor's mouth was moving, saying something, cajoling him to get inside the car most likely, the wind was picking up and howling and too cold.

 _"My dear Doctor."_

Loki slowly raised two fingers of his own and tapped twice on his chest.

Stephen watched the car finally roll down the driveway and out of sight. He thumped his forehead against the window, wishing he could just reach out with his mind, knowing Loki was only a call away-

 _"Only when necessary, Strange."_

 _"I know, Loki. I know."_

 _"So do I."_ A pregnant pause. _"Stephen."_

And at just the sound of his name, spoken in Loki's voice, Stephen's heart soared.


	3. Chapter 3

Loki decided to stop talking when curiosity overcame his natural instinct of apprehension and he allowed Stephen to remove his boots and pull up his leggings, exposing Loki's legs from the knee down.

Stephen conjured a measuring tape out of thin air and wrapped it around one of Loki's calves and then the ankle, before moving onto the other limb, taking note of the circumference of each bony landmark.

Loki caught Stephen muttering something under his breath as the wizard doctor measured the distance from the floor to the bend behind Loki's knee, and Loki could not hold the urge any longer. "What? What is it? Is something the matter?"

Stephen sighed. "This is one of the times I do not envy you Asgardians for being so bloody tall. I fear I might not have one in your size and length."

"Whatever are you talking about?"

A large duffel bag suddenly materialised by Loki's feet, already opened and filled to capacity with boxes upon boxes of something. Stephen rummaged through the pile, studying the labels and discarding them over his shoulder until he finally found what he needed. "Aha."

"The Orthopods at Mount Sinai really came through for me - I knew they would have just the right one for you," Stephen sounded much too gleeful for Loki's liking. "Well as tall as you are, you're a midget compared to some of the NBA players out there."

Loki just stared at Strange blankly. Then he hit the side of his head a couple of times with the heel of his hand. "I think my Allspeak is finally broken. None of what you just said made any sense."

Stephen blinked. Right. "Okay. Come give me your leg."

Loki dutifully did as he was told, righting his sitting position on the couch before placing his bare foot on Stephen's bended knee.

"What is this contraption?"

"Compression stockings."

"They look so...medieval."

"Says the Viking God who still wears chest plates and vambraces to dinner."

"Ah yes. I suppose we should emulate your royals with their frock uniforms and golden braids and fluffy tassels. How very comely."

"Please. They are not _my_ royals."

"I will have you know my choice of dinner clothes has saved my life quite a few times over the centuries." Loki sniggered. "Thor's too."

"Surely you exaggerate."

" 'Tis true!" Loki bristled in mock insult. "Stopped an arrow aimed for his throat once or twice. Damn near shattered my wrist but at least Asgard's Golden Son lived yet another day to drink himself under the table and into many a handmaiden's skirts."

Stephen could not help a smile of amusement. Finally satisfied, he patted and squeezed Loki's calf lightly.

"How does that feel?"

"I am not quite sure if there is a word to describe the sensation of being both uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time." Loki's nose wrinkled. "They are very tight."

"They are supposed to be. Helps to keep the blood from pooling in your legs every time you stand or walk. You do realise you have spent more time being horizontal than upright ever since you conceived?"

"Yes. And I have grown very tired of it."

"I can imagine." Stephen nodded. After a beat. "How have you been feeling otherwise?"

"As well as can be expected. Just a bit of cramping, here and there but I've not had any serious pains, not really." Loki wriggled his toes. "If this thing does exactly what it says on the tin then I should be back on my feet and back on my game."

Despite his lingering concern, Stephen could not help but smirk. "You speak Midgardian now. Lose the clothes and I might just take you to see the Yankees."

Loki gave him a frosty look. "Careful, Strange. The last time I did that you planted a baby in me."

Then his sharp features contorted into a frown. "They can't still be alive? Does that mean the Confederates are still around? I lost my Bowie knife in a wager on Álfheimr and I wouldn't mind a replacement."

Stephen stared at him. "O-kay. Not Midgardian enough for baseball, yet you were here during the Civil War. Why am I not surprised."

Loki grinned mischievously.

Stephen studied his face. "You do look better."

"I am not wearing a glamour if that's what you're implying."

"Of course you're not. We had an agreement. I will not pursue the issue of you moving in any further, and you drop all manners of glamour every time you visit. I may be a sorcerer, but I am a clinician first." Stephen pinched the pad of Loki's big toe, watching as the blanching disappeared and the flush of pink returned after a few seconds.

"Good. Not too tight. The fit is perfect."

"Will that be all today, Doctor?" Loki's mood had sombered at the mention of the stupid agreement. The atmosphere in the Sanctum seemed to have grown heavy all of a sudden, and he felt the first stirring of restlessness.

"Actually, no, ah…" Stephen's finger tapped a staccato on his knuckles. He breathed in as if gathering the strength to say something courageous. "Would you mind giving me a lock of your hair?"

NO.

"Why?" Loki asked warily. "I haven't died yet."

"Why would you even say tha-" Stephen's grey eyes darkened to a stormy black. "It's for a SPELL, you idiot."

"What. Spell."

This was a bad idea. There was no way this was going to end well. Stephen winced. _Here goes nothing._ "A locator spell, Loki. In the event of unforeseen emergencies, I need to have a way to get to you."

"So not only can you call on me at random, you also wish to put a tracking spell on me?"

Stephen took a deep breath. He placed a hesitant hand on Loki's knee. "First of all, we agreed to mindspeak only when absolutely necessary. Yes?" Loki nodded furiously, still fuming in silence.

Stephen's gaze strayed from Loki's stricken face down to his midsection. Being unnaturally tall and slender, Loki was barely showing. "And second of all, if you were ever in trouble, I need to be there."

"I can take care of myself."

"Of course you can. You are Loki of Asgard." _Ah hell. Screw this._ Stephen reached up and took Loki's hand. "But I am not talking about you. I am talking about me."

"If anything happens to either of you and I cannot get to you – " Stephen ran his thumb over the ivory knuckles lightly. "It will destroy me."

"And what if I said no?" A challenging whisper; Loki had yet to remove his hand.

"Then I will simply steal some while you sleep. Just like I stole Thor's when I helped him locate your Father."

A moment of shocked silence.

"Odin came to you?"

"Not how I would put it." Stephen hesitated. "I keep a watchlist of beings from this realm and beyond that could potentially pose a threat to this world. Any sorcerer worth his salt could sense it the moment Odin The Norse God of Sky, War and Death came to Earth."

Loki was silent for a very long time. "Was it you who found him where I left him and sent him there?"

 _To that beautiful place where his mother was calling and he could not hear her, for all his sins and imagined worth and misguided attempts at atonement?_

"He was no longer a threat by the time I got to him but I recognised the spell." Stephen gazed at him coolly. "And the spellcaster."

"I take it I used to be on this list of yours?"

"Do you really have to ask questions you already know the answer to?"

"Was that why you kidnapped me?" Loki asked nonchalantly.

"No, it just happened to be a lazy Sunday afternoon and I was bored."

"A lazy Sunday afternoon," Loki echoed, his face suddenly a blank pasty canvas. The day Father died.

 _The day you unleashed Ragnarok upon us all,_ an inner voice said viciously.

"Hey." Once again, Stephen's hand was back on his knee. "No need to upset yourself, Loki. I have updated the list since and if it makes you feel better, you're no longer on it."

Loki's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Are you sure that is wise, Strange? Do you truly think the only threat I pose right now is that of ruining your precious furniture?"

Cool as a cucumber, Stephen cupped the back of a bony ankle in one palm and used the other hand to roll Loki's pant leg down over the stocking, before doing the same on the other side. "I do hope not."

He gestured to the patch on Loki's collarbone just about visible peeking out from under the neckline of his tunic. "I assume Thor procured that for you to help with the sickness?"

The sharp glint did not leave Loki's eyes. His voice was deceptively soft. "Do you truly take me for a fool?"

Stephen did not answer.

"You and Thor." Loki shook his head in disgust. He looked away, but not before Stephen caught the hurt in his eyes.

"In my defence," Stephen drawled. "Thor was not supposed to tell you where he got it from."

Loki shook his head again in that trademark way of his that indicated his disgust at the idiocy of others.

"He needed not tell me, Strange." Loki spat. He propelled himself out of the chair and stormed across the floor. He stopped in the middle of the room, his back stiff and tense. "I recognised the spell. And the spellcaster."

"It was out of worry for you." Stephen argued. "Surely you know that."

" _Of course_ I do!" Loki snapped, whirling around, face white with anger. "That is not the point!"

"Then do enlighten me, Loki, because I am at a loss here." Stephen rubbed a hand across his forehead. Give him blood, broken bones, severed spinal cords, brain matter, whatever - he would not break a sweat, he could fix it. But crazy princely alien mood swings? NO. "And please, calm down."

Loki breathed in deeply.

How could he make Stephen understand? How to even begin?

"Since time immemorial, Thor has always been my Sun. And I his Shadow."

His chest began to hurt at the memory. "But the sun shone brighter and brighter, and one day it shone too brightly, and the Supernova finally eclipsed me."

Pale fingers reached up to clutch blindly at his chest, as the pain grew. "And I was lost for a very, very long time."

"And at the end of a very long fall, I was found. But I remained lost to the world, to Asgard and all the realms, to _him_."

"And I'm sure you know the story, you played an important role at the beginning." Loki gestured a careless hand at Stephen. "Just as Thor found me, I reconciled with our Father whose untimely death unleashed a devastation that destroyed everything and almost everyone we knew."

Stephen listened with growing trepidation.

"But you know Thor. You've met him. Nothing keeps him down. He's manic like that." Loki chuckled mirthlessly. "So what is the King of once-Asgard most afraid of now? I'm sure you know the answer to that, Doctor."

Stephen remained silent. He could feel his own face drain of colour.

Loki placed a hand on his stomach. "I am the heir to the throne, and now I carry within me the next-in-line. And that terrifies him."

Stephen's features hardened. "Surely he has more things to worry about than a babe who is yet to be born usurping the crown."

"No. You misunderstand me, Strange." The dark-haired prince shook his head violently, and he closed his eyes in frustration.

"Thor has lost so much. He _cannot_ lose me." Loki gripped his stomach tighter. "If this thing kills me, it will destroy _him_."

"So yes. I will give you my hair. I will give you whatever else you ask of me. I will put my life in your hands if you wish it, Doctor. But hear me this."

Loki's voice rose a notch, and his crisp voice seemed to echo through the walls of the Sanctum, as they bore witness to his words.

"Thor saved me when everyone else had all but given up on me. If you had asked me a year ago, before Ragnarok, I would have denied it with all the vileness my lying heart could conjure."

Loki straightened to his full height.

"But Thor is the reason why I'm here. There is nothing he will not do for me." His voice dropped low as if awed by his own words. "And I, him."

Loki fingered the anti-nausea medicinal patch on his chest. It was the thing that finally helped curb the raging illness from devouring him into a hollow pit. "Thanks for this, by the way."

Thor had swallowed his pride and animosity and sought Stephen's help when he could no longer bear the sight of his brother withering away. But again, Stephen was just too slow, too many steps behind. When he should have been the one to initiate the search, to find a cure, the right spell, to leave no stone unturned -

"Thor is not afraid to love all of me." The still air was heavy but it carried Loki's inaudible whisper nonetheless. "Not anymore."

 _What about you, Doctor?_ The unspoken question in the steel green eyes was clear.

Stephen felt weakened in the knees. His arrogance had cost him again. The morning sickness was a given, and he took it for granted, thinking it would go away eventually – and through his indifference and _negligence_ , Loki had suffered. Their child had suffered.

"Can it really?" Stephen asked quietly, humbled. "Kill you?"

"Yes."

Stephen's eyes smarted. "I will try harder, Loki. I promise."

He walked slowly to where Loki was standing stock still.

"I understand your hesitation, Strange." His face was serene, his words light-hearted. Loki looked hauntingly beautiful.

"There are some things only Thor can do for me that no one else can."

 _Only Thor._

What was this sudden rush of jealousy? Stephen felt his diaphragm constrict involuntarily as he fought to temper the waves of emotion he could not understand from escalating, this all-consuming rage-

Cool fingers wrapped around his shaking wrist and snuffed the fire out like magic.

"And there are some things only _you_ can."

Stephen traced Loki's jawline with his thumb reverently, before extending his other fingers to sweep Loki's long hair away from the sharp angle of his neck.

 _"Will there come a day when you would come…only to me?"_

Loki's eyes misted.

"Oh Stephen." A hand reached up to where Stephen was clasping his neck, the way Thor always did – the sensation so familiar yet so achingly different.

"You know I cannot do that to him." The coldness of Loki's fingers interlocking with Stephen's belied the raw vehemence in his voice. "I have died too many times in his arms."

The realisation hit Stephen like a physical blow to the gut. Thor and Loki had had centuries together.

 _Thor is not afraid to love all of me,_ Loki had said. The blazing madness, the bloodlust, the fantastical mind, the fathomless darkness lurking underneath his all-encompassing savage beauty.

How could Stephen possibly compete with that? He reeled.

"There is no part of you that I can call mine," he whispered, aghast. In his weakness, his hand would have fallen away from Loki's neck had it not been for Loki's vise-like grip around his fingers

"You have _this_." Loki balled their hands together in a fist, brought it down his front and pressed their intertwined palms to his abdomen where their son slumbered.

Stephen stopped breathing.

 _"Someday I am going to kiss you and when I ask you the question again you will say yes."_

"The day you can say that out loud, Sorcerer," Loki whispered, "-might just be the day I let you."


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

Thor paled. "Brother you should have said so! As fine as this establishment is, I am not certain if they have horse meat on the menu as this is clearly a seafood restaurant that you have chosen to sit in, but if you were to give me one hour, I'm sure I can hunt one down for you." He looked around. "Now where did I put my Sto- _umbrella_ …"

"Thor, relax. It's just what Midgardians say when they are famished to the point of madness. If I do not get food within the next five minutes, I assure you there will be a stabbing incident or two."

"Oh thank the Norns."

Loki was nearing his sixteenth week into his pregnancy now, and incessantly ravenous. Of course, Thor was only too eager to accompany him on his food trail around Greenwich Village.

After Loki sent the waiter scurrying with their order along with a barely-concealed threat that there was to be no dilly-dallying with the food lest he wish to part with any of his limbs before his shift was over, Thor admonished him lightly. "Loki, please do not terrorise the help."

But he was secretly pleased. So delighted Thor was with the return of Loki's appetite he could not care less about deflecting pointy things as long as his brother was thriving and no longer the thin wispy thing he had been just a month ago.

Loki flicked his wrist languidly. He slouched in his chair and leaned his head back, basking in the warmth of the sun on his face.

"Valkyrie sends her love."

"No, she doesn't." Loki snorted delicately, his eyes still closed. "If it please Your Majesty, I beseech you do convey her message verbatim?"

Thor grinned at the memory.

" 'Lackey, get your gallivanting princely arse back here, you spindly little shirk!' " Thor's blue eyes danced with mirth. "Thus endeth the message."

Loki threw his head back and laughed. "Trust Val to come up with an insult so patrician I fear I might weep in merriment as I revel in its compliment." He shook his head, amused. "She flatters me."

"She cares."

"I wonder if we are indeed talking about the same person. She cares naught for me."

"You are the Crown Prince of Asgard, the heir apparent." Thor waved a kingly hand at him." Of course she does."

"Forgive my impertinence, dear brother, but I do beg to differ. I am no heir apparent." Loki said flippantly. "Heir presumptive, maybe."

"Prince Loki. Always politically correct."

A fond smile. "Always."

Thor chose not to mention Valkyrie's insistence that he, the King of Asgard, was to haul the prince back to Norway, which to Thor was akin to seizing the moon by the teeth – _no one can make Loki do what he doesn't want to do!_ – but he understood her concern.

 _He hasn't even been to see the healers, has he?_ She had snarled. _Back in my day, he would not even dream of stepping a foot outside the palace until the babe is well and born. What cheek!_

Yeah…try telling Loki that.

"She worries for you."

Loki gave an insouciant shrug. Were the shadows in his brother's eyes but a figment of Thor's imagination, he would not have persevered in his endeavour to endear his brother to the Valkyrie's cause.

"The oath she took weighs on her with every second we are out of her sight and her blades grow heavy, as surely does her heart."

Loki clasped his hands on the table and leaned forward. Something was coming.

"What are you proposing, Thor?"

"Join me at my side in Asgard."

Loki was silent. When next he spoke, it was with a measure of careful curiosity.

"And what of your precious Avengers?"

"There is not much to avenge anymore. The realm is as stable - or unstable - as it is ever going to be, and I fear in my absence, that I have done our people a great disservice. The Earth is in good hands, the good Captain assured me as much."

"I appreciate the grand offer, I do…" Loki gave a little shake of his head, that meant neither rejection nor acceptance. "But I will need time to think this through."

"Of course, Loki," Thor smiled warmly.

The food finally arrived but the atmosphere was no longer quite as lively.

The thunder god watched as his brother slowly ate, taking bite after small bite in morose contemplation.

"Loki, are you…content?"

Loki's forehead wrinkled. "What brought this on?"

Thor fiddled with the stem of his glass. "The reservation I had that brought me to contemplating moving us to New Asgard, the very same."

Thor averted his gaze, his voice tinged with hesitation, but he soldiered on.

"For the number of times I played escort and relinquished you into the care of the good doctor, I have seen you leave the Sanctum as many times with such melancholy in your eyes and a heaviness in your steps, that I-" he abruptly fisted his lips.

"Thor…"

"And I have never asked how you really feel about your…situation." Thor said tersely. "I have thought to ask, but I have never asked really."

Stunned into silence, Loki's fingers forgot all form of muscle memory and his fork dropped with a clang.

"I do not wish to see you hurt, Loki."

"Thor."

"I will not see you hurt. Never again."

 _Say the word and I will take you away._

His mouth tasted of ash. Suddenly Loki felt sick to his stomach.

His appetite all but lost, Loki reached across the table and touched Thor on the wrist tentatively.

"No harm will come to me, Thor. I will not allow it."

He fiercely wrapped Thor's wrist in a grip so tight shooting pains lanced through Thor's fingers.

"You will not allow it."

Loki could feel the electricity bristling underneath Thor's skin.

"And neither will Stephen."

And there was Loki's answer.

"Brother, you know I would never think of forcing your hand-"

"My place is wherever you are, Thor," Loki said softly.

Thor beamed. He placed his own hand over the pale fingers still grasping his wrist. "Likewise, brother."

"I will wait until you are ready." Thor nodded. "I'll play your Taxi Man for as long as you need me."

He pointed his fork at Loki's untouched plate.

"Now eat your horse."

* * *

"It is no bother, Thor. I can manage."

"Are you sure?" The God of Thunder's body language screamed absolute reluctance. "I can walk you there. Or better yet call you a cab."

"We are literally just five blocks away from Bleecker Street. I could use the walk." Loki patted his stomach gently. He maintained his illusion of his favourite Midgardian get-up in his streamlined suit jacket and slacks but knew the second he reached the Sanctum Sanctorum it would have to lift, or he would not hear the end of it. He would not mind enjoying his old slim figure for a little while longer.

"Go on. Your team needs you." Thor was suddenly called away to the Avengers Tower just as they had finished their lunch. His friends would never begrudge Thor for indulging his wayward little brother in his fancies and clamour for attention but Loki prided himself for being that person no longer. On his least-hormonal days at least. "Thanks for the meal. And the company."

Thor patted his shoulder. "There's no need for all that, brother."

Loki raised a hand. "Stop. I know that look. You're going to say something sappy. Walk away, now."

Thor bellowed a laugh and obliged. "Till next time, brother."

Loki watched his brother's rapidly disappearing back as the Thunderer ran off in the opposite direction, swerving in and out of the continuous stream of pedestrians.

Loki began his amble down the avenue, relishing the sights, the sounds, the smells - the energy of this city was insane. It was so unlike Sakaar yet in a way every bit as vibrant and chaotic, the memory of his invasion but a distant echo; so distant he felt brave enough to pretend, if only for a while, that it was someone else's memories. Even if the guilt would probably return to jolt him out of his reverie before he even reached his destination.

No one who knew him in the slightest would ever identify happiness as the attribute of his default state of being. Let alone contentment.

Thor's question lingered long and intrusive.

 _Is Loki happy?_

Probably not. He had not been happy in a long time, he could very well have forgotten how it felt like.

 _Less bitter, perhaps._

And that is a start, isn't it? He asked himself.

He felt the child shift inside him and a thrill he could not suppress caressed his spine. The start of something happy. Could he dare to dream?

 _Where shall we have you my child? Is it to be here in this anarchic Midgardian city with your father, or Asgard in faraway Norway, with your uncle, the King?_

Loki's mind, so far off drifted, settled as his trail of thoughts grounded to Stephen's visage, suddenly so clear in his mind's eye. This metaphysical bond he shared with the human wizard was unlike any other he had ever felt; the energy, like the city itself, was new and very much present, not ancient like the love he once shared with Sigyn, but no less strong in its unchartered, untethered transparency. His senses enveloped him in a cocoon of warmth as if Stephen's magic itself was permeating the air around him – he must be getting close.

He looked around and sure enough, he was now only two blocks away. He picked up pace.

All of a sudden, a fleeting shadow darted past his periphery, catching him off guard. Loki's step faltered as he strained to get the measure of his equilibrium; was it just one of his dizzy spells, playing tricks on his vision? He had not had them in a while.

But alas he was as steady on his feet as he ever was.

A heavy wave of foreboding surged through his senses. His suit thawed into his familiar green and gold battle leathers, concealing his abdomen behind a glamour and fortified layer of seiðr.

In sudden realisation, it dawned on him how quiet and deserted the street was. Had it been empty all along?

 _Or is it magic?_

The blood in his ear throbbed in time with his heart, and his child squirmed again, undoubtedly restless.

He steeled himself and called his magic up at the ready, before quickening his pace once more.

The shadow came at him again and this time it darted right across the plane of his vision.

Loki could sense it coming, the onslaught of magic, foreign to him yet startlingly familiar-

 _Strange?_

The golden mandala barrelled toward him full force but with a stroke of his hand, Loki deflected it easily, the resultant geyser of residual energy obscuring much of his vision. In the haze, Loki caught sight of a hooded figure, there one second, gone the next-

And the shadow came at him again, and in his surprise, the invisible shield of seiðr enveloping his body faltered, and a hand snaked through the miasma of magic and yanked at his wrist.

Loki's dagger slashed at the attacker but not before the offensive magic conducted through the attack cracked his vambrace, the bulk of which neutered by the sudden break in contact, yet the end-tails of it penetrating his shield of seiðr...and in an instant, Loki's glamour failed.

The one second of naked vulnerability turned terror into resolve; with his gravid belly now in full display, Loki called upon his magic, his seiðr awakening once more to lift his shield and protect his unborn son.

The hooded figure stood a good five feet away. An amber mandala materialised in his outstretched hand, evolving in its sinister intricacies reminiscent of the blazing fires of Surtur.

Loki's heart leapt in his throat and he blindly reached deep within him, praying fervently to the Norns to grant him reach-

 _"Strange!"_

* * *

Stephen bolted out of his chair and flew across the room, slipping his sling ring on and was a heartbeat away from opening a portal when a familiar green form shimmered into existence just a few steps out of reach and Stephen dived to catch Loki as he lurched forward.

"Loki!"

The raven-haired prince was shaking violently with exertion and his hands grasped wildly at Stephen's arms, seeking the leverage he needed to remain upright. Stephen was having none of it and in the blink of an eye, Loki found himself lying on a bed. Whose and what sort of room, big or small he could not tell; the world would not stop spinning.

Loki clutched his forearms to his chest as his heart pounded and pounded against his ribcage like falling mortar. He could feel hands cradling his face, carding through his hair-

"Stephen?"

"I'm here, I'm right here." Loki felt the heat of Stephen's body pressed against his thigh as the Sorcerer Supreme loomed over him. "Loki, what _happened_? Are you hurt?"

Loki's body shuddered and a burst of seiðr pushed Stephen physically aside and before he knew it, Loki was hanging halfway off the edge of the bed and retching onto the floor, bringing up what little he had for lunch. He groaned softly before his body convulsed again with another violent wave of sickness.

He felt Stephen's warm hands explore his thickened waist, his shaky fingers working to release the straps of leather. Loki bargained with his upset stomach for a few seconds of mercy and concentrated to lose his armour; once Stephen managed to slip his hands underneath his clothing, Loki resumed his purging, much to Stephen's dismay.

"Loki…"

The healing energy radiating from Stephen's palm soon reined in the beastly nausea and his stomach rapidly ceased its vicious cramping. Once Loki stopped heaving, Stephen helped him lie back against the pillow and he could dimly hear Stephen call out for someone.

No sooner had he relished in the blissful absence of queasiness than he felt a cool, wet compress laid over his eyes. Someone cleaned his mouth, cheeks and neck with a wet cloth.

Another pair of unfamiliar hands felt along his wrist, and Loki realised it was the one with the vambrace the spell had cracked. "Leave it on, Loki. We need to take a look at it." Gentle fingers swept his hair off his sweat-soaked forehead. "You just rest."

Loki swallowed hard and nodded wordlessly. He allowed Wong to take his arm, and circled the other protectively around his abdomen.

Wong fingered the fissure that ran along the long axis of the vambrace from the base of Loki's thumb to the inner bend of his elbow. "There is no mistaking it. There is residue from the Spell of Revelation."

He met Strange's look of alarm, his eyes grave. "This was done by one of us."

"Can you read the energy signature?"

Wong shook his head. "The amalgamation of our sorcery and Loki's Asgardian magic has rendered its individual components indecipherable. We will have to wait until your friend recovers enough to tell us more."

Wong and Strange looked at the figure lying still on the bed. "He looks like death warmed over."

"The teleporting took a lot out of him." Stephen's eyes hardened. Loki must have been fleeing a life-or-death situation. He could hear it in the way Loki had screamed his name. He fiddled with his sling ring anxiously.

Wong glanced at him out the corner of one eye. "You alright?"

"Yes. I just need to find out who did this." And why. _Why Loki?_

Wong nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. "I will contact our friends over at the London and Hong Kong Sanctum and find out if there is anything to find out." He stepped over the puddle of sick on the floor and strode out.

The Sorcerer Supreme carefully sat himself on the bed and studied Loki's arm where the tell-tale first-degree burn traced an angry, red line from his wrist all the way up to the elbow. The Spell of Revelation was a powerful spell in the hands of a Master of the Mystic Arts; its intent not to maim, more to reveal the true nature of something or someone, to uncover what was concealed…but to have used it on Loki? To what purpose?

Stephen closed his palm over the burn and softly uttered the words of a healing spell to reduce the inflammation and ease the pain. Loki did not flinch.

 _"Loki?"_

Loki did not answer. Reluctantly Stephen stood to leave, wanting nothing more than to stay and watch over him but at the same time knowing Loki needed rest.

 _"Stephen."_

Stephen sank back onto the bed in relief.

 _"Yes, my darling?"_

 _"Could I ask you to stay?"_

An armchair materialised by the bed and as if Loki could sense it-

 _"No, not there. Please. Just – Hold me?"_

Stephen did not need to be told twice. So prostrated was the sorcerer prince by the strain of teleportation and use of seiðr and carrying of a child of magic and God knew what else the universe had in store for him, Loki did not resist in the slightest when Stephen wrapped his arm around his waist carefully.

When Stephen became a doctor, he had sworn an oath to do no harm.

Loki let out a small sigh and nudged his head against Stephen's cheek, his unusually warm forehead emanating heat against Stephen's skin. So still. So broken. Stephen held him tighter.

 _When I find out who did this, Loki-_

That oath might just be the next thing to break.


	5. Chapter 5

"Defectors from Kamar-Taj with a penchant for dark magic, or for simply causing trouble?"

"They are all accounted for, last time I checked." Stephen rubbed his stubble. "The registry is clean."

"Could it be Kaecilius? Or his remaining Zealots, out for revenge?"

"I don't believe there are any left. The pathway to the Dark Dimension is all but sealed and for as long as the Book of Cagliostro is under your care, it might as well be obliterated. Unless you've let someone break into the library. Again." Stephen dead-panned.

He shook his head. "Besides this attack seemed a bit too personal…the Zealots were kind of like, you know, 'the bigger picture' kind of people."

"Personal? Why do you think it is personal?" Wong said in that expressionless way of his that Strange never knew meant jest or sarcasm. "Because it happened right on our doorstep, or because it happened to Loki?"

"Don't read me like one of your books, Wong," Strange said tersely. He then sighed, and relented.

"No, from what Loki said, it didn't sound like Kaecilius."

"From what Loki said, it didn't sound like anybody." Wong muttered darkly. "A hooded figure with no clue as to his identity."

Stephen resisted the urge to glare at him, lest he show too much the offense he was taking on Loki's behalf.

"So no deadly blades made of rainbow glass then. A bit of an impossible idea too since he did turn into dust and become one with the stars." Wong shrugged. "Did Loki see the attacker use any other relic?"

Stephen shook his head in frustration. "No relic. Just hand-to-hand combat and spells. The other two Sanctums come up with anything?"

"Things are quiet on the English and Hong Kong fronts. But they are increasing surveillance." Wong frowned. "Although…"

"What?" Stephen asked warily.

"Master Hamir did mention a peculiarity in recent times at Kamar-Taj. I am not sure if it is connected."

Stephen waited for him to continue.

Wong scratched his cheek hesitantly. "A number of former apprentices who left the Kamar-Taj in favour of worldly pursuits and patients who had been cured by the Ancient One with magic have reported of sudden loss of magic and relapses. This has no precedent and Master Hamir is understandably confounded."

Stephen frowned deeply. "Could the Ancient One's death have anything to do with it? Like how if an army ant queen dies, the colony dies with her?"

"But it is not the Ancient One's magic that sustained the healing and the continued recovery in the first place. It is your own magic." Wong crossed his arms. "Besides if that were true, shouldn't all of us be affected in the same way?"

Stephen rubbed his upper lip in consternation. "I do not like this, Wong."

In an attempt to cheer his Sorcerer Supreme up, Wong patted his shoulder and gave him a smile, which looked ill-at-ease at best. "Hey. Maybe it was simply an isolated incident? A case of…how do you say it…'Wrong place, wrong time'?"

"A mugging is a wrong place, wrong time." Stephen growled. "Someone attacks you with a Spell of Revelation, that's an outright sniper-for-hire assault."

"What if…the sniper had wanted to reveal Loki for what he is?"

"Which is?" Stephen raised an eyebrow, daring Wong to say any of the many wrong things.

"A…millennium-old alien sorcerer who once attacked New York and is now being sheltered by the Sorcerer Supreme?"

"You and I both know the invasion was not of his own volition, not entirely."

"Don't get me wrong, Strange. You like the guy, I don't dislike the guy." Wong shrugged. "Others may not share the sentiment."

As if on cue, a sudden shudder ran through the Sanctum, shaking the walls and rattling the chandelier above their heads.

 _Oh…boy. Here we go._

* * *

"Thor Odinson. You're looking awfully…battle-ready. For…" Stephen's gaze flicked to the grandfather clock on the wall. "7 o'clock in the morning." He nodded to the man standing next to the God of Thunder, whom he was not at all expecting. "Dr Banner."

Wong hooked both thumbs into the belt at his expansive waist, eyeing the God of Thunder who was all decked out in his battle armour and cloak, Stormbreaker ever at the ready. "Are we going fighting again? Do we have time for some tea first?"

"Sorry to barge in like this, Strange. Master Wong." Thor flung Stormbreaker over his head, resting it on one vast shoulder. Stephen felt a little irked at the sheer familiarity (or maybe it was plain dislike) presenting itself as well-concealed disrespect but decided to do well away with it. They were his guests after all.

"What can I do for you gentlemen?"

"SHIELD has detected a sudden surge of combative energy in your vicinity yesterday but was unable to pinpoint the exact location, possibly due to the shielding effect of whatever weaponry or abilities used by the combatants," Bruce began. "We scoured the area for possible threats in and around Greenwich Village the whole of yesterday but could not find any physical evidence of anything…physical."

Strange and Wong exchanged looks. "So…in other words, the Avengers did not find anything to smash or pulverise and you have come to us for…help?"

"Of the metaphysical kind, yes," Thor affirmed, fixing Strange with a suspicious look. "Was that a knowing look you just gave him? Or you just happened to look in the general direction of the other person and your eyes just happened to meet?"

Stephen felt a vein throb in his temple. Since when did this hulking bulk of muscle mass develop such keen observation sense? _Good on you, King of Asgard._

"Yes, Your Majesty, it _was_." If Thor could do snarky, he could do it twice over. But they were supposed to work together after all. "I am afraid there has been an incident involving an unidentified wielder of sorcery, most likely a Master of the Mystic Arts, and an unanticipated attack on our…person."

"Any casualties?"

Stephen paused. "No."

But Thor once again picked up on the nuance of hesitation in Stephen's brusque answer. His golden-tanned face blanched. "Where is Loki?"

When neither Stephen nor Wong answered, Stormbreaker thudded to the floor.

"He did not return yesterday." Thor took a few steps forward. "He _did_ come here?"

"I am here, Brother." A familiar voice carried into the drawing room from an annex right behind him. Thor whirled and broke into a magnificent smile.

"Loki. I am glad you are safe."

Thor's giant hand clamped on his shoulder, thumb automatically brushing against the side his neck. Thor's smile wavered. "You are alright? You feel warm."

"Yes, Brother. I am only slightly indisposed." Loki gave him a wan smile. He looked beyond Thor, and his smile turned a little more characteristically mischievous. "Hello, Bruce."

The physicist was staring at him open-mouthed, no doubt having caught sight of Loki's rounded abdomen, now very much visible against his willowy frame despite the loose tunic he was wearing.

"Okay." Bruce removed his spectacles, his movements calculative and measured, wiped the lenses on his shirt and put them back on again. "Okay. Still there. Still…yeah."

Loki winked. "Oops."

"I am sure there is a perfectly logical scientific explanation." Bruce waved a hand, trying very hard to appear casual. "No sweat. I have seen stranger things. Yep. I really have…"

"So!" Stephen clapped his hands. "Back to the matter at hand."

He waved a hand and five ostentatious-looking fauteuils appeared in a circle. "Everyone, do take a seat." He looked pointedly at Loki, furtively studying him from head to toe. He only looked a shade paler than normal but appeared his usual self with no tell-tale sign of residual weariness or nausea.

Good. Jolly good.

"We…are still in the midst of investigation and have established communication with the London Sanctum as well as the Hong Kong Sanctum. We are trying to determine the nature and scale of the threat, but preliminary inquiry suggests these attacks are solitary and…contained for now."

Stephen tried to gauge Loki's reaction but alas Loki's face was as blank as paper.

Bruce appeared unconvinced. "So, in your opinion, there is no immediate danger on an apocalyptic scale to New York or any other city in the world?"

"Yes." Stephen answered shortly. He clasped his hands in his lap.

"Yes, as in there is immediate danger on an apocalyptic scale to New York or any other city in the world?"

"No." Stephen growled.

Loki sighed. He propped an elbow on the armrest and leaned his temple into the heel of his hand. His head was still a little heavy.

Wong cleared his throat. "Dr Banner. Perhaps it is best if we could adjourn and let us back to our work and we shall update you if there is any development or matter of concern?"

"Yes. But at least do tell us who the victim of the attack was. Was it a civilian?" Thor ventured a guess. "Another wizard? Captain Rogers has kindly requested something to put in the report."

"Hey, what happened to your arm?" Bruce suddenly demanded.

In alarm, Loki realised his faux pas a heartbeat too late when Thor rose to his full towering height and lifted his finger. "NO. No glamour."

Stephen closed his eyes and wished he could disappear for an hour. Or a day.

Thor took Loki's elbow surprisingly gently and straightened his brother's arm, pushing up the sleeve even further. He stared down at the stretch of inflamed red skin marring the milky whiteness of the underside of his forearm. Stephen noted with alarm the angry blisters scattered along the path of the burn that must have formed in the night.

What powerful magic it was to have lingered so; it was now a second-degree burn and much more serious. No wonder Bruce was alarmed.

Thor's expression was unreadable. "It was you."

Loki's eyes steeled. "I attacked no one."

Stephen climbed to his feet, "Guys-"

"You were attacked. And you did not tell me."

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Loki wrenched his arm out of Thor's grasp, shot to his feet and practically flew out of the room.

"Loki!" Thor growled warningly.

"I've got this, big guy." A hand pulled on Thor's impressive bicep.

"Banner?"

The physicist patted the air with both hands in a 'wait here' gesture, obviously meant to placate the God of Thunder, who was becoming more overwrought.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Thor turn around to loom over Doctor Strange and decided he did not want to stay. Banner quickly left the room in search of the Trickster God, feeling more than slightly guilty. God, he hoped Loki had not teleported anywhere he could not follow.

* * *

"Hey." Bruce found him in the kitchen, sitting at the table and staring into space. There was a mug in front of him. The mug was empty.

"Hey."

"You alright?"

"Yes."

Bruce nodded. At least Loki was still willing to speak, even if in monosyllables.

"Look, I'm sorry about all that, you know, earlier."

Loki gave a disinterested shrug. "Why? You haven't done anything to me."

"Right." Bruce fidgeted and fingered the back of the chair right next to Loki. "Mind if I?"

Loki shrugged again. He couldn't care less. He was a thousand miles away. It did not matter in the slightest where Bruce sat.

They sat in silence, an uncomfortable one at first, but with each passing minute, Loki sensed his awareness slowly returning as if Bruce's presence was a tether pulling him in. After what felt like hours, he took the first deep breath ever since leaving that stifling excuse of a meeting he wished he had not attended.

"You don't look all that surprised."

At Bruce's raised eyebrow, Loki looked expectantly at his bump which was nothing to write home about; it just looked like he had swallowed a very small whole cantaloupe.

The physicist gave him a small smile, of what suspiciously looked like relief. "I had my suspicions. Not that you were knocked up, no. But more like I was worried you were hiding some kind of illness or something. You were vomiting quite a lot and quite too much and too long for a simple stomach flu."

Loki looked at him sharply, his green eyes unreadable.

"So all the while you were wearing a glamour, huh."

"I would hate having to answer questions."

Bruce only nodded in mutual understanding.

"I haven't thanked you for the teas."

"Did they help?"

"No," Loki chirped. "Which was why I didn't thank you earlier."

Bruce laughed softly. Loki glanced at him in surprise.

"Well. Herbal teas are usually only placebos anyway. I just couldn't, you know, not help."

"Well. Thank you, Bruce. For what it's worth, I am much better now."

"I'm glad." He gestured at the empty mug. "Did you want to make something to drink?"

"I did. Then I figured why bother." Loki blinked lazily. "It is never going to fill me up inside."

Bruce did not know what to say to that. So he did what he always thought was best to break an awkward conversation. He changed the subject.

"So. Will you be coming with us to Asgard, then?"

Loki's head whipped around and stared at Bruce, eyes wide as saucers.

Bruce looked up in the general direction of the ceiling. In the distance he could hear the sound of something likely made of glass breaking loudly and he shook his head. Thor's umbrella was _lethal_.

He pointed at Loki's arm. "You do know Thor is never letting you stay here after _that_ , don't you?"

In a sudden display of quiet rage, Loki picked up the mug and threw it at the wall in front of him where it smashed into pieces.

* * *

When Loki returned to the drawing room, aside from Wong who had mysteriously disappeared and the million pieces of what used to be a cauldron, which Loki had long suspected to be Eldhrímnir, the old Norse cauldron of the gods, but no matter now - nothing seemed amiss.

Stephen was leaning against a wall in a far corner with his arms crossed tightly across his chest and looking very cross. Loki gave him a once-over and decided he looked unscathed. No doubt he had told Thor everything. He could tell by the downward slope of Thor's shoulders as the Thunder God stood hunched in front of the window, staring out at nothingness.

"Thor."

The Thunderer turned around very slowly. His stony, impassive façade masked the despair in his mismatched eyes.

Loki knew that look. And he _hated_ it.

"Loki Odinson, Prince of Asgard, you are hereby ordered to promptly return to Asgard, and the presence of your person is requested by this evening at the latest. Dr Banner and I will personally escort you-"

"By whose command?" Loki fought to keep his voice steady and disinterested. He felt Bruce's grounding presence by his side but he could not see beyond the figure standing in front of him and the shadows he cast over them all as the morning rays shone through the windows.

Thor did not answer.

Loki turned his back and walked out for the second time and made a note to make damn sure no one was going to be able to find him this time.

* * *

He was wrong.

He sensed the static energy hovering in the air long before the portal flickered into view, and when the familiar red-cloaked figure emerged out of it, Loki leaned his head back and thumped it hard once against the wall. He noted the absence of pain. Good, he thought. He was still numb. That meant he could say just about anything and exactly everything he wanted to say and worry about the consequences later.

The Sorcerer Supreme glided towards him and came to rest a mere foot away. Loki ignored Stephen's proffered hand up and slowly climbed to his feet.

"So. Did Thor have to twist your arm, or did you simply give me up?"

"I cannot give up someone who is not mine to begin with."

Loki pursed his lips. "Always a clever answer with you, Doctor."

Stephen was as calm and collected as ever.

"It was not meant to upset or hurt you."

Loki barked a laugh. "Oh, I'm _sure_ it wasn't. Thank you for being so considerate of my delicate tendencies."

"You weren't there when Thor and I talked but surely this doesn't come as a surprise to you." Stephen sounded almost aloof and Loki's blood ran cold with icy fury.

"You promised me," he whispered. "You will try harder, you said."

Stephen clenched his jaw.

"I was not going to pretend I am capable of offering you protection when I wasn't able to prevent one of my own from attacking you right at my front _door_ , Loki!"

Loki's throat began to constrict as anger rose and welled in his gut like waterbrash. He could feel the monster in him rear its head, threatening to swallow him whole like the sea-

"It is not protection that I wanted from you!" Loki nearly choked on a sob. "Never that!"

"Then what did you want? Tell me the truth, Loki." Suddenly Stephen was in his face, his grey eyes flashing, his handsome features contorted in a snarl, "Are you happy here with me? Truly?"

Loki recoiled and took an intuitive step back. He blinked back against the sudden wetness in his eyes.

"You and Thor are more alike than you know."

"Oh, _please_ do elaborate." Stephen implored sarcastically. "I am dying to know. In what way am I even remotely similar to your dearly loved brother?"

The threatening tears dried in an instant and Loki's eyes hardened as he hissed, "I am not a piece of relic that breaks the second things go awry, Doctor. You think asking me if I am happy, or upset, or content or whatever the Hel it is you both think I am and should be feeling is going to insulate me in some way against your own insecurities?"

"You're projecting. I know feelings can be a difficult concept for you."

"Tell me you're only asking solely out of concern for me."

"What else is there if not for concern?" Stephen threw his hands up in exasperation.

"Oh, I shouldn't presume, Doctor. Feelings are difficult for me, remember? Maybe to assuage your own guilt? Regret? You tell me."

"You think I regret this?"

"Spare my sensitivities, Strange," Loki spat, "I am no docile creature. I have seen the way you look at me. Or don't look at me. You are _conflicted_."

Stephen's face blanched. Without thinking, he grabbed Loki's arms and catapulted them both into a tapestry on the wall, the only thing cushioning Loki from the impact being the sheer heaviness of the ornate fabric, but he still felt the shudder go through his head and for a moment Loki saw stars.

"You have no _idea_ -" With the weight of Stephen's body pressing against him, Loki could not escape noticing the tremors of fury radiating from the sorcerer's chest and abdomen. The hands clenching his arms were shaking, yet the grip exquisitely painful. Loki winced.

"There was no choice, Loki."

"There was always a choice. Do you truly think if there had not been a choice, I would subject myself to this? Carrying the baby of a _stranger_? No pun intended, of course."

"You tried to terminate the pregnancy, remember? It didn't _work_."

Loki leaned forward until their noses almost touched, his eyes dark and stormy and utterly devoid of light.

"I threw myself off the Bifrost in a _tantrum_ , Sorcerer. Taking a knife to my gut and slicing my belly open is no hard measure."

A chill ran down Stephen's spine-

This was it. This was the madness. This was Loki.

The Loki who never gave direct answers to anything, whose words stung like poison, whose black, black heart withered at the first display of affection through no fault of his own but the ones who should have showered him with nothing but love of the deepest kind.

The Loki who, in his twisted, roundabout way was _telling_ Strange that

"You _do_ care." Strange's grip loosened around Loki's arms, as if only realising what he should have realised right from the start-

He looked down to the soft curve of rounded flesh between the juts of Loki's hipbones pressed hard against his own midriff. "You wanted him too."

 _Just as much as I_ , and that thought thrilled Stephen to the core.

But the sudden rush of euphoria was lost on Loki, whose voice began to shake.

"I am a warrior, Strange. I have fought countless battles alongside the mighty Thor for as long as I can remember. I have sat upon the throne of Asgard, wielded Gungnir and ruled over the Nine Realms in lieu of Odin All-Father, so deprived of lifeforce was he under a spell that _I_ cast, that he told me he loved me and _died_."

There were unshed tears in Loki's eyes.

"Your rogue sorcerer corners me in a street. Casts a spell that strips me bare, and instead of answering the challenge and taking his head off where he stands, I retreated." Loki's hand ghosted over his belly.

A sick whisper. "I felt him move inside me and I _ran_."

Loki dropped his head slowly, his forehead thumping against Stephen's chest without realising, exhausted as he was. "What does that tell you about how I feel?"

"It tells me, to tell you-" Stephen laid a hand against the side of Loki's face, lifting his chin so the green, green eyes had nowhere to look but only at him. "That I'm going to do _this_."

And Stephen kissed him.

Loki's heart came to a crashing halt, and his eyes slowly, so very slowly, fluttered to a close. The tips of Stephen's fingers lightly lingered on his temples, before digging deeper, bolder, deliberately kneading the sensitive pressure points behind his ears with deft thumbs in time with each delicate probe of his tongue, lips soft, dry, yet undiluted honey still-

Stephen's kisses grew hungrier and more desperate; Loki yielded with as much give as Stephen ever remembered him give on that one night they shared, too, too long ago, his tongue more teasing than exploratory, goading Stephen to push back even harder.

Loki could hardly breathe, his chest tight as his pulse quickened with each gasping heave and his hands clawed the front of Stephen's robes-

And when they finally broke away, Loki was the first to speak.

"Strange…"

"Yes?" His lips throbbed. He still could not take his eyes off Loki's lips.

"Do we really have to fight before every time we kiss?"


	6. Chapter 6

"You are very warm." Thor had been right in his deduction.

"It's the burn." Loki sighed wearily, the heat of his breath bristling through the tiny hairs on Stephen's neck. "It is consuming me. I do not take very well to heat."

Stephen knew full well the dangers of unchecked fevers to human women in pregnancy, and was willing to bet the dangers applied to Loki as well. He reached down to cradle the convexity of Loki's belly and frowned deeply at the heat emanating through the thin layer of his tunic. "It is not good for the baby."

"Had you but bargained for one more day with me-" Loki murmured

"I bargained for a hell of a lot more than a day for you." He had gone as far as suggesting Loki be sequestered in a Mirror Dimension so long as the threat was still at large, but Thor would have none of it. His wrath was something to behold.

" _You would have my brother locked up in another dimension, alone and with child, until you see fit to release him?"_

" _Until we have eliminated the threat, there is no hold as secure and safe as the Mirror Dimension. I will guard it, and by extension, him and our unborn child, with my life."_

" _A prison by any other name is still a prison and will not and will never again be a place for Loki. Not in my lifetime and I can live for a very, very long time, Master Strange."_

 _Stephen stiffened and his protest died before given voice as Thor leveled him with a glare so fierce, so indignant_

" _The onus is on US to fight for him and protect him, not latch onto the first easy way out without a care for his holistic wellness." Suddenly Stormbreaker was but an arm's length away from his chest. "I care not that you have the most secure magic dungeon in the universe and that you hold the key in your hand."_

" _Keys can be lost. As for hands," Thor looked coolly at the human sorcerer's pitiful, scarred ones. "Well."_

"Thor loves so differently."

Seeming unfazed by the sudden change in subject, Loki followed the train of thought well as if he was reading Stephen's memory. "That he does."

All reserves spent, Loki started to slide down the wall, and would have landed on his bottom had it not been for the chair Stephen quickly conjured for him. "As I was saying before you kindly interrupted me-" He looked down at the palms of his hand, "I do not have much time for healing spells and quiet recuperation. Evening comes but in a few hours."

"Surely Thor would understand if-"

"My brother is a newly anointed and crowned King, Strange. And as the only living member of the Royal Family and the King's Advisor, I cannot undermine his authority so soon into his reign, not when he has issued a royal decree, for what will his subjects think of him then?" Loki shook his head wearily. "I will not jeopardise his rule."

A moment of silence ensued.

"For someone so proud to be contrary, you and Thor are one and the same." Stephen grumped.

Loki did not rise to his taunt. The look of consternation on his face filled Stephen with the first curls of dread. "What are you thinking, Loki?"

"I am thinking that you might hate me for what I am about to do, and I am unsure if I am ready for it. Yet I must."

"My dear, we are _so_ past hate." Suddenly very tired himself, Stephen sat down on his haunches and rested his head against the side of the chair. He reached up and claimed one of Loki's upturned palms in his hand. "We might as well be a married couple now."

Loki laughed, but it sounded bitter and strangely buoyant all the same. "I wouldn't be too sure about that." His fingers curled around Stephen's, holding on to the last semblance of warmth and affection, savouring it while it lasted-

"If it weren't so hateful Odin wouldn't have hidden it from me under the pretence of fraternal love and parental protection, and my life wouldn't have been the wreckage of fallen dominoes that it was, and in some ways still is."

Stephen was quiet for a long time. "Would have, could have."

"Oh, you Time Lords." Loki closed his eyes. "Spare us the lecture and let us lament for time is short even for immortals like me. Shorter still if we don't hurry."

Stephen watched as a trickle of sweat traced a path down the hollow of his neck with pangs of worry.

"What do you need?"

"I need to purge this poison. It is a fire, borne of magic, thus one must fight fire not with fire, but ice."

"Right. So magic ice." Stephen nodded, his mind already thinking of a dozen spells and running a mental checklist of ingredients he must procure-

"No. Not magic ice, my dear Doctor."

Loki lifted his palm, the one not still fiercely holding Stephen's hand, and blew.

And lo and behold, his nails elongated and tapered to razor sharpness, ombréing to an obsidian black. An effervescent pale blue began spiralling down his fingers in lazy swirls, releasing clouds of icy steam from his fingertips.

" _Ice Magic."_

* * *

Stephen paced the floor. His footsteps had traced the well-trodden path on the long hall runner rug back and forth for most of the hour, yet Loki was showing no sign of change.

But he knew better than to disturb the meditative stance of the figure sitting cross-legged on the floor against the wall of so still a countenance one would think him a statue. Stephen marveled again at the sight of Loki's pale blue skin and the intricate ridges lining his face like artistic keloids.

"Come on, Loki," Stephen muttered, trying to ignore the anxiety threatening to take over.

A breathy whisper - "Ready, Strange." _The statue speaks!_ Stephen hurried over and crouched in front of Loki in anticipation.

 _Here it comes._

Loki's eyes flew open, crimson and unseeing.

A sudden drop in temperature heralded the coming of the dark energy as Loki gathered it all at his core; he lifted his burned arm into the air and held it out straight with his palm facing heavenward –

Heavy frost started to form where Loki's shoulder met his neck, traveling downward toward the first of the many blisters. Stephen watched the frost sweep over the inflamed, peeling skin and raw denuded areas where the blisters had burst until it finally reached his wrist. From his fingertips, thick tendrils of black smog began to appear, its wisps seemingly sentient as they traveled through the air as if seeking a new host.

Stephen conjured a flask imbued with containment and cleansing spells and held it at eye level with one hand. Golden tendrils of energy began to take on form in his other hand and like a lasso, he cast it toward the residual energy of the Spell of Revelation and lured it into the flask. After all the smog had been contained, Stephen palmed the mouth of the flask and sealed it with another enchantment, his eyes trained on Loki.

And finally, it was over.

Loki exhaled a long, slow, icy breath-

He opened his eyes of crimson rubies and found himself staring into the Sorcerer Supreme's grey eyes. Loki did not speak as he braced himself, expecting to see horror or revulsion…and yet he saw none. Only deep-seated worry and a hint of irritable impatience.

"Loki?" _Are you back with me?_

"Yes." He answered the unspoken question. He could not understand the instantaneous look of sheer relief his short answer had brought forth onto Stephen's face.

"Thank God." Stephen shook his head. "You've been gone a while."

"The venom lay deep and strong. I had to find it all and not leave even a drop in my blood lest it poison our son."

Stephen gazed at him, his handsome face unreadable. "So, this is you?"

"Part of me. The real me. All of me."

Stephen was quiet for a long time.

"What are you called?"

"A _Jötunn."_

Again, Stephen was silent for a long stretch of time. When he finally spoke, his voice was tinged with wonder. _"Fascinating."_

He reached out to touch Loki's face, and immediately Loki recoiled. "No mortal hands can touch me and not get burned."

Stephen gazed at him coolly. "I am no ordinary mortal."

And true enough, when Stephen's palm came to rest against Loki's cheek, his touch recognised the feel of Loki's skin, now only a few degrees colder than usual. To Loki's great relief, no black canker of frostbite lay claim to the human sorcerer's skin and he relished in the feel of Stephen's thumb as it caressed his cheekbone gently.

"Do I not…disgust you?"

The Cloak of Levitation whipped around and smacked Loki on the other cheek, eliciting a surprised gasp. Stephen's laughter rang through the deserted corridor. "What he said."

And Stephen kissed him, light and chaste.

"And that's what I say."

Loki still could not speak. When a second kiss came, this time deeper and harder, he began to come around and a blue hand rose to hesitantly cup Stephen's cheek, marveling in wonder at the contrast of his blue skin against the tanned brown of Stephen's stubbled jawline.

"You are truly undisturbed by my true form?"

"I'm an all-or-nothing kind of guy, Loki." The last time Loki touched his face, Stephen had rebuffed him in a fit of misplaced indignation. He would not repeat that mistake. "And I'm saying I'm all in."

Loki felt his heart flutter, but the thrill did not last long. He watched Stephen shiver against the chill he must have had to endure for hours.

Loki willed the change with ease, and soon the cerulean blue of his skin and the garnet hue of his eyes receded; with the return of his pale Aesir skin, Loki noted the absence of the burning fever with an almost overwhelming sense of relief; Stephen immediately placed a hand on Loki's forehead and by the look on his face, it was a sentiment shared.

"This form's alright too," Stephen shrugged, feigning nonchalance. At the sight of Loki's green eyes, now clear and no longer clouded by the throes of fever, desire stirred inside him like the feeling of awakening to the morning sky after a long, long sleep. "Shall I kiss you again?"

His eyes suddenly downcast, Loki tucked an unruly lock of jet-black hair behind his ear and shook his head slowly, mournfully, "All these months of holding back and now that we only have hours to ourselves –"

"I could come with you to Asgard."

Loki blinked a few times. "A tempting prospect, Doctor, but what about your Sanctum?"

"I'm only a portal away. Besides, unlike you, Wong has a phone. And a different Beyoncé ringtone with every call. Drives me mad because he forgets and never picks it up."

The humour was evidently lost on Loki; his sharp pinched face telling Stephen that perhaps a bit more convincing was required. He grasped the now pale hands and squeezed. "Look. I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to stay long but at least I can see you settled in, and once I am convinced of your safety and that of our son, I will return to New York. I do have unfinished business here." His eyes turned hard. He had a sniper to hunt.

"Besides, Stark did say he needed help with the crops, agricultural technology not being his forte or something or other. I know a cultivating spell or two that might help."

"That's what you'll be doing. Farming." Loki dead-panned.

Stephen leaned in for another kiss; he'd waited too long – "Among other things."

* * *

"Hate me if you will, brother, though it pains me greatly that you would," the God of Thunder's eyes were equally mournful despite their mismatched colour, "But know that it pains me even more to see you come to harm."

Despite his determination to at least maintain an outward appearance of anger, Loki could feel it melt away at the sight of his brother, so resigned and burdened he was by his brotherly inclinations, judging from the hunching of his great shoulders and the dejection souring his handsome features.

"I do not hate you, Thor." Loki sighed at last, and stepped forward to accept the embrace, fierce and tight, but Stephen noted the care Thor still took lest he crush Loki in his gratitude and relief.

Stephen soon found himself the center of attention as they gathered around him and looked at him expectantly. "I trust you will grant us safe passage and see us off?" Thor asked. The antagonism seemed to have all but left him, and his tone was not unkindly.

"Yes, about that, brother." Loki gave Thor's hand a cajoling squeeze. "Stephen would like to accompany us to Asgard and perhaps remain for a day or two, if you should grant him stay."

"Of course," Thor consented without hesitation. "You are welcome, Sorcerer, and the length of your welcome is indefinite, seeing as you are the sire of the child my brother carries, who is also my nephew and my royal heir."

"He is?" Bruce squeaked. The physicist squinted at Stephen through his little spectacles. "You are?"

Stephen felt his eyebrows quiver in irritation. "And what of it?" He snapped.

Loki rolled his eyes. Yet when he spoke, it was not without a hint of amusement. "Oh Bruce." He shook his head in exasperation. "Who did you think it was? NO, you know what? Don't tell me." His glare turned venomous when Bruce's gaze flicked reluctantly in Thor's direction.

"Gentlemen. My friends. Brother." Thor interrupted. "Let us go. The Valkyrie and Einherjar are waiting."

Stephen stepped backward a few steps, still more than a little pissed off, gauging from the dirty look he was giving Bruce, and Loki found himself strangely warmed inside.

Deciding to take pity on the human, Loki walked over to him and his cool fingers grazed the back of Bruce's hand fleetingly. "A pardonable oversight, Bruce. Think on it no longer."

Bruce grimaced an apologetic smile. Loki could be so scary when he wanted to be. And his fingers were _cold_.

Stephen quelled his lingering annoyance and concentrated. A few sleights of hand later, a sizable portal bloomed into view and the golden haze of the sun setting over the beautiful Norwegian coastline washed into the drawing room, basking them in its residual warmth and ethereal glow.

The four of them stepped through with Stephen in the lead, and he found himself face-to-face with a woman, clearly a warrior judging from her gleaming silver-white armour and the aura that radiated from her core, yet possessing of features so comely Stephen would call her beautiful in a heartbeat. Her bronze skin shone in the light of dusk and her black hair long and full, but despite her beauty, Stephen could sense something deadly about her…must be the way her hand curled around the hilt of her sword at her side that only relaxed when she caught sight of the rest of the entourage.

"Your Majesty."

Thor nodded at her.

"Brunnhilde, Doctor Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme." He waved his kingly hand around by means of introduction, "Doctor Stephen Strange, the Valkyrie Lady Brunnhilde."

"Valkyrie to you." Her voice was level, not yet friendly.

Unconsciously he drew on his chakra and felt his aura deepen. Stephen was a lot of things, but without manners he was not. "Nice to finally meet you." Raw magic radiated from him in an invisible corona of power.

Valkyrie only snorted. "You didn't tell me he's a show-off. Step aside, _Sorcerer Supreme_."

Stephen heard Loki chuckle softly from behind him.

"Lackey." She looked her dark prince up and down, unabashed. " 'Alright?"

"Never better." Loki's smile was serene, but his eyes playful. "Been working out, I see."

"All the better for kicking your skinny arse." She smirked in return. "Highness."

"It's good to see you, Val." A slight upturning of her lips. It was gone in the blink of an eye as she turned her full attention again to the Sorcerer Supreme, standing slightly off-centre in the entourage.

"Huh." As she did Loki, Valkyrie looked him up and down coolly, obviously studying him like an entomologist would an insect. "At least you're slightly better-looking than the Grandmaster."

"If only he were made of as much money," Thor muttered under his breath, and Bruce muffled his snicker with a polite cough.

"Shorter by a mile, but at least the royal babe will have a chance at looking passable."

"I…thank you?" Now Stephen knew what Loki meant when he said the Valkyrie had a wit with a default setting somewhere between complimentary and derogatory.

Loki did not seem offended at all, for at a discreet nod he permitted Valkyrie to lay her hand upon his royal person with not so much as a frown. She kept her palm steady and gentle on his belly as her eyes glazed over and Stephen could swear they changed colour; it was a few long seconds before her reverie broke and her eyes returned from the fluorescent silver to her normal dark brown. "He will be a strong one."

"And so shall I be, for him." The unexpected thrum of magic from her binding oath stole Loki's breath, and he wavered slightly. Thor placed a steadying hand on his back.

"Thank you, Valkyrie." Thor's shoulders relaxed as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"Majesty." She gave a small bow of her head. Then she cocked it in the direction of the settlement. "Shall we? Your subjects are waiting."

"I like what you've done with the place." Loki murmured as they walked through the fields of grass, catching glimpses in the distance of the golden spires of the new school of magic he had commissioned, the minarets of the healing halls and the golden domes of the new palace and administrative buildings, all still under heavy yet thriving construction.

"Why thank you, Y'Highness," Valkyrie purred. "Fat load of help you were, traipsing around with your new fancy man-"

Bruce was quick to gesticulate his hands wildly before giving the Valkyrie a sharp nudge in the side, "No, no, no, not the 'F' word, Val!"

"What. Fancy?" Val snorted. "Look at him. The tunic, the belt, the hair - take away that _peculiar_ thing on his back and convince me he didn't lift all that off the Grandmaster's fashion book."

Stephen could feel the Cloak of Levitation bristle and he patted it placatingly, yet his nose crinkled in irritation. "Who _is_ this Grandmaster you all keep talking about?"

"Thor. She called me fat."

"Valkyrie. We've talked about this." Thor hissed, slashing his index finger across his throat-

Bruce nodded vehemently. "Yes, he is a bit sensitive, more sensitive than usual-"

"Thor, have you been calling me that too?" A crestfallen look. "How _could_ you, brother?"

Valkyrie threw her head back and cackled.

She socked Loki on the shoulder none-too-lightly before leaping up to circle her heavily-vambraced arm around her royal charge's neck, forcefully bringing him down in a quick, tight embrace. "You leave my sight again, and I will kill you. _Fatty_."

Stephen stared. And felt he should offer his two cents' worth somewhat. "You guys are crazy."


	7. Chapter 7

"So. You and Loki, huh."

Within minutes of walking toward the settlement, so caught up was he with the unfamiliar surroundings Stephen found that they had fallen into formation so naturally that he did not realise he was no longer walking next to Loki, and only noticing when Bruce started speaking.

"I can see this still weighs heavily on your mind. Any particular reason why?" Stephen asked testily, his eyes looking at the three figures walking ahead of them about a hundred feet away, appearing deep in conversation; Thor in the middle, flanked by his brother and the Valkyrie.

"Oh no, no. I'm just, looking out for the guy, for lack of a better word - I do that, you know, look out for people." Bruce looked sheepish, but his eyes turned serious at his next sentence. "He's…fragile."

"He's not bone china." In fact, Loki looked anything but, tall and strapping in his Asgardian ceremonial armour, loosened around his middle to accommodate his growing abdomen.

"He might look it, but no, not in that sense. That's not what I meant."

Stephen decided to ask a question that had been bugging him since they left the Sanctum. "No offense but why are you here?"

"Oh, none taken," Bruce said magnanimously. "There's a lot of reasons why I might be needed, like, really, a lot."

"Okay?"

"I have seven PhDs, you know."

"So I've heard," Stephen said dryly.

"Thor wanted to return to Asgard so I thought I might just tag along for the ride. We have history together, the three of us. Me, Thor, the Angry Girl-"

"Angry Girl?"

"That's what the Hulk calls her, the Valkyrie." Bruce pushed his spectacles higher up his nose. "We fought Hela together, escaped annihilation in the Grandmaster's orgy ship, and watched Asgard burn from afar. So I figured, rebuilding her needs all the help Thor can get."

"And getting Loki to come by force, was that part of the contingency plan if he had not come willingly? Was that why Thor needed you?" Strange knew the Hulk was the one creature that could still give Loki the occasional nightmare.

" _No_ , man," Bruce protested. "I'm not evil."

"But now that I know Loki's, you know, in a delicate condition…I am largely here for him."

Stephen frowned, not understanding. "I'm not following."

Bruce pursed his lips. "Hmm. Maybe I've said too much. Forget it, it's nothing-"

"Dr Banner." Stephen sighed, that clearly meant _how many bloody times do I have to play this card before people just do as I say?_ "Shall I remind you of the obscene amount of money you still owe me for the repairs of the damage you caused to the Sanctum when you fell out of the sky not so long ago?"

Bruce studied him in silent contemplation, before giving him a brisk nod.

"As you know, Loki is not of this world." Bruce paused. "He isn't of Thor's world either."

"Are you trying to be dramatic?" Stephen asked in exasperation. "I know he's not truly Asgardian. He's a Jötunn." Of course, he was not going to give the physicist the pleasure of knowing that he had only learnt of it just this morning. Academicians were a competitive lot of people.

"Oh good, you already know. That makes my job easier."

"And what is your job exac-"

"So you also know when the time comes for him to have the baby, we are going in blind as we know next to nothing about his biology and physiology, save for what little I learnt during his brief imprisonment when he led the Chitauri army into New York? And that Jotunnheim might as well be a billion light years away now that the Bifrost is gone and that Loki is literally the only Jötunn around for miles and he knows next to nothing about his ancestry and God help us if there are complications because that guy?" Bruce pointed discreetly at the God of Thunder's back, "Will incinerate us and raze everything to the ground."

"So…Congratulations, old chap!" Bruce clapped him on his back with more enthusiasm than Stephen would have liked, "Quite a catch, if I may say so myself. You must be thrilled. Loki's an endangered species after all."

Bruce stalked off to join his fellow Revengers and Stephen had a suspicious feeling he had just been royally chastised.

* * *

"I'm never eating again, this is absolutely horrible." Loki let out a soft moan as he stretched out on the bed, before contorting again into a ball. When that made the pain worse, he straightened out once more, seeking desperately for a position that would offer the most reprieve from the inferno of acid bubbling from his stomach and into his gullet like lava.

"Overindulged, darling?"

"I don't understand it. I didn't even eat that much." Loki mumbled into a pillow he had covered his face with. Suffocation was looking to be a more attractive alternative by the minute.

"Do you want a lengthy medical explanation or a concise, Acid-Reflux-for-Dummies version?"

"Shove your explanation up your pompous ass, Strange."

"Oh my. The acid's gone to your prefrontal cortex and soured your sunny disposition, darling."

"Fuck you." A muffled whimper. "Dear."

"Come on. Sit up. Lying down will only make it worse."

"Thank you kindly, but no. Dying is less tiring when you do it lying down. I'm not moving."

"You're hardly dying, Loki." Stephen rolled his eyes. He dropped an effervescent tablet into a glass of water. "Here. Sit up and drink this. Don't want it to go down the wrong way and have you drown on Alka-Seltzer on dry land."

"Just one damn thing after another." Loki groused. "Whatever could be next?"

"Is that a rhetorical question? Coz if it isn't, I've got a long list- let's see, haemorrhoids, varicose veins, sciatica and would you believe, stretch marks?"

Loki moaned long, loud and pitiful.

"Fuck. This really hurts."

Stephen frowned. What Bruce said about Loki's largely unknown biology bothered him. What if it wasn't a simple case of indigestion?

"Is it the baby?" Stephen demanded, sitting down on the bed, trying to pull the pillow off Loki's face, "Let me see - Loki, let go!"

Stephen's chest tightened at the sight of Loki's eyes, shiny with tears yet unspilled, but very worrying nonetheless. He placed the glass of water on the bedside table and climbed onto the bed on all fours. "Show me where it hurts?"

Relief washed over Stephen when Loki placed his hand high up his long torso on the area directly below his sternum, well away from the baby. Yet Stephen gently palpated the bump anyway, and when he felt only soft, yielding flesh and not contractions, he let out a sigh, once again reassured.

"What the hell did you eat?"

"Some vegetation called ghost peppers? I've never had them before." Stephen rolled his eyes. Trust Loki to fall in love with one of the spiciest peppers on the planet. Loki shook his head mournfully, "They were good too."

"Ever heard of taking everything in moderation?" Stephen helped Loki sit up and placed the glass of antacid water in his slightly trembling hands. He watched Loki take sip after small sip, resisting the urge to run his fingers through the lank black hair and wipe the tears away from the sickly pale face. Loki looked miserable. "Why is it always the extreme with you? You either eat too much, or nothing at all."

"It's not like I did it on purpose, Strange. I'm not a masochist."

"Could have fooled me," he muttered under his breath. Loki finished the glass and pressed his sleeve to his mouth, hiding his grimace.

"Tastes like poison."

"Says the person who downed a bucket of ghost peppers just to prove a point."

"What point."

Stephen hefted himself closer and leaned against the headboard. He hesitantly reached out an arm around Loki's shoulders; when Loki did not resist, Stephen pulled him in. After long minutes of tense internal debate, Loki reciprocated, leaning his head into the crook of Stephen's neck. Soon after, Stephen found himself pressing his cheek down against the mop of black hair that smelled strangely of smoke and sandalwood.

"That 'Norwegian soil is too acidic to grow any kind of quality peppers.' " Stephen mimicked Loki's accent down to a tee. "Altering the soil's pH, that's child's play alchemy for me, my dear," he said haughtily.

The fingers of the arm draped around Loki's shoulder playing absently with the porcelain-cold collarbone, Stephen was not surprised when his other hand automatically reached for the offending area and dispensed the usual wave of soothing magic.

"Hmm." The creases of pain on his forehead relaxing, Loki's breaths soon became more controlled and not as tight and shallow.

"Anyone ever told you that you have magic hands, Doctor?"

"I have been told that, yes." His hands, his greatest gift, robbed in an instant on a fateful rainy night. "Once upon a time."

After a beat, "I'm sorry."

"Don't feel sorry for me, Loki. I made my choice." To serve a greater purpose, to tame his ego, he had given up his hands, and never looked back.

 _To not be selfish._

Loki threaded his long, thin fingers through Stephen's calloused, scarred ones resting on his belly. "I'm sure it didn't occur to you that you would be trading an illustrious career as Midgard's best brain surgeon for this."

"What, giving you tummy rubs every other day?" Stephen asked teasingly. "Seems like I've been doing that since the day I met you, Loki."

When Loki did not answer, Stephen gave his shoulder a light squeeze.

"You might not believe me, but honestly? I think I've got the better end of the deal." A soft kiss on top of his head. "There's nowhere I'd rather be."

Loki's green eyes gazed at him in wonder. "Surely you don't mean that."

Stephen rolled his eyes. _Here we go again._ "Stop doing that. Telling people they don't mean what they say when they actually do is a frustrating experience, in this case, on my part." He groused. "As perceptive as you are, please refrain from doubting the people who actually give a damn about you."

Loki palpably stiffened in his arms.

"What is it, Loki? Is the pain back?"

"No. I'm fine."

"Loki."

"I was just-" Loki took a deep breath. "I was thinking about my Mother."

Stephen's fingers that were playing with his collarbone stilled.

"You nag like her."

"I'm…honoured?"

"And your hands...they remind me of her. She had magic hands too." Loki remembered nights of long ago when he would be taken ill as a child, of the warmth of Frigga's hand on his forehead, on his chest when she would apply some salve to ease his coughs, on his back, rubbing circles when he would be sick from the slightest dietary indiscretion-

His eyes dewed but he quickly blinked the dust away.

"Pardon me, my mind has wandered off too far. Surely this was not your idea of a good bedtime conversation, talking about dead parents." Loki inhaled deeply. "But alas, there's just Thor and me now."

"I'm quite alright with that actually. Saw 'Meet the Parents' once." Stephen shrugged his shoulder. "Wouldn't recommend it."

Loki laughed softly. "Mother would have liked you."

"I take that as a compliment. I'll take any win, really, since I still can't get Thor to like me."

Loki smirked. "You care not if Thor likes you or no."

There was perhaps a ring of truth in that. Maybe he only cared if Loki did.

Stephen pulled back slightly to gaze at him. The lines of pain had disappeared from his face and for the first time in perhaps a long time, Loki looked relaxed and completely at-ease.

Loki felt his gaze on him and decided to call Stephen on it. "What are you thinking about?"

"That maybe you orchestrated this whole thing with the peppers to get me to spend the night here with you." Stephen smirked, Loki snorted – "And that I probably should tinker with the spell a little bit. Take the Schoville unit down by a hundred thousand or two." Loki could feel Stephen's lips curve into a smile against the skin of his temple, but there was something else Stephen wanted to say; Loki could detect the hesitation from the stillness of breath in his unmoving chest.

"What more than that?"

"Will you ever get around to telling me about this Grandmaster?"

Loki did not answer as promptly as Stephen would have liked. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, lilting. "He is just one of the many figures from my past, Stephen."

When Loki offered nothing more beyond that, a strange sensation began to arise in Stephen's chest. It only took mere moments for him to realise what it was – jealousy, with a side sprinkling of fierce protectiveness bordering on possessive. "Should I be worried?"

"Oh yes. He is an Elder of the Universe after all," Loki said casually. "One of the last remaining ones."

Stephen blinked. "I will have to look that one up."

"He gave you a ship," Stephen recalled Bruce's words. "An orgy ship."

"He didn't give it to me. I stole it." Loki grinned, but the smile did not reach his eyes.

"He was kind to me up till the moment I betrayed him – well, Valkyrie did, but long story – I was next on his execution list when I stumbled upon the biggest ship in his hangar and escaped in that."

"You stumbled."

"Yes, I stole it by accident, that's what I said. I usually do not think that far ahead." Loki stifled a yawn. "Unless there is a clear goal in sight - you know kings to dethrone, realms to decimate, cities to conquer …that sort of thing requires some sort of advanced planning."

"Anyone ever told you that you have a vulgar sense of humour?"

"Oh I am not trying to be funny," Loki said wrily.

"So…will we be expecting him anytime soon?" Stephen tried to keep his voice casual. _Do alien death penalties even have a statute of limitation?_

"I don't think it is the Grandmaster we should be worried about."

Stephen unconsciously tightened his grip around Loki. He said nothing, his gut coiling with the tell-tale curls of dread.

"I am not one to be swayed by disillusionment, Strange." Loki said calmly. "I am no more safe here than back in New York as you would have me believe."

The muscles in Stephen's jaw clenched. There was a chill in the atmosphere, yet he doubted it was the Scandinavian night air dropping in temperature.

Loki fingered the sling ring on Stephen's fingers in quiet contemplation. "Surely the mastery of the sling ring is not limited to you."

And suddenly Asgard in faraway Norway did not seem that far away at all. Not by a mile.

The glimmer of fear in Stephen's eyes reaffirmed what Loki had always suspected.

 _there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he can not find you_

"Just one damn thing after another."

* * *

Stephen startled awake.

Still in deep sleep next to him, Loki did not move, his pale chest gleaming in the moonlight as it rose and fell with every breath.

There it was again. Distant, low, barely audible. But there was no mistaking the sound of sword striking sword.

Stephen leapt to his feet, the Cloak of Levitation flying off the coat rack and landing on his shoulders as he marched outside. Noting the four Einherjar warriors standing guard outside the door, Stephen's pace quickened towards the open field in front of him as he caught the familiar sight of flickering golden energy, lighting up the air every time it hit metal just a hundred yards away.

The Valkyrie brought her sword up as the Staff swooped down in a swinging arc toward her head, and she twisted her body just in time, narrowly missing a booted kick to her exposed side. The hooded figure's foot landed on a slab of rock instead and used it as a fulcrum as he catapulted into the air, lashing out with the Staff once more.

Brunnhilde raised her vambraced arm to the level of her eye in the attempt to block the attack but the blow from the Staff never came; what came instead was a powerful whip-like projection of golden energy that wrapped around her forearm like an armlet, and it burned. With a scream she swung Dragonfang upward and slashed its fiery hold free, the tether of the magic rope dissipating into embers.

In the distance, she could hear more shouts and the sounds of Einherjar guards running across the grounds.

In the inky blackness of the night, a momentary distraction was costly and she realised her mistake when the hooded figure charged at her again; only this time she had let her guard down for a few milliseconds too long and the Staff was but inches away from striking her unprotected head.

She saw golden stars explode in front of her eyes and felt herself pushed to the ground; when she felt no pain other than the immediate stinging of having been thrown into the dirt she realised the blow never came. Valkyrie raised her head, and immediately found herself enveloped in a heavy blanket of sentient cloth as it flared around the figure who had apparently shielded her, two giant holographic Mandalas erupting from his hands.

"Need some help, Lady?"

The Sorcerer Supreme reined his magic in and prepared for the next assault, his fighting stance firm on the ground, scorched in a twenty-feet radius at the epicentre of the counterattack against the Staff of the Living Tribunal.

"What the _Hel_ are you doing here?" She hissed, a trickle of blood fast making a trail down the side of her face.

"Saving your ass!" Stephen snapped. "This isn't something you can fight – it's magic!"

Valkyrie pushed herself off the ground and looked around wildly, trying to ignore the rising fear-

But the enemy was no longer anywhere to be seen.

"If _you're_ here, then who's protecting the Prince, you Dumbass?!" Valkyrie screamed in rage. She started to run.

Stephen's heart jumped to his throat as he realised his dire mistake and the Cloak flew him as he had never been flown before-

 _Mordo don't you hurt him_

The four Einherjar guards were lying sprawled in a tangle of limbs outside Loki's chamber, dead or unconscious, Stephen did not know. He flung the doors open, frantic, but knew deep in his heart of hearts the sight that would await him.

Loki was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

"Loki is still here in Asgard." The locator spell had a very narrow margin for error, but for an inexplicable reason it could not pinpoint Stephen to Loki's exact location. It was maddeningly frustrating when the portals he opened led to the same place every time, the sprawling courtyard where the brief scuffle had occurred but no Loki. "Mordo has not taken him away."

"And yet we cannot know for certain where he is, or if he still lives." Thor said, his voice low and ominous.

Stephen had tried to reach out to Loki through their telepathic connection but received not so much as a whisper in the way of reply. Thor's fears resonated in the hollow pit of terror gnawing in his own gut.

Wong rubbed his chin, deep in thought. He had come bearing news just shortly after Loki's disappearance. Jonathan Pangborn had once again sought aid from Kamar-Taj for his previous affliction, and despite the paralysis affecting his speech, he had uttered but one name clear as day.

 _Karl Mordo._

 _"To the others he had not shown his face, his identity remaining elusive until he revealed himself to Pangborn just before Mordo extracted the binding magic from his spine, rendering him once again a cripple."_

 _"I told you, Wong. This is personal." Stephen said softly. "Pangborn was my patient."_

 _"And now Mordo has taken Loki." Stephen fought to keep his voice level. "I need your help."_

They were gathered in the Great Meeting Hall and it had been fifteen minutes since Loki disappeared. Thor's face was carved ivory still, yet his eyes hid poorly a turbulent storm threatening to erupt. Valkyrie was pacing up and down the great room, her hand clenching the hilt of her sword, clearly itching for something to run through. Neither of them had spoken very much.

"They must be in a Mirror Dimension," Wong said seriously. "That is the only other explanation."

Stephen and Thor looked at him sharply. The only explanation other than the one that could only mean Loki was already dead, in body and in spirit.

"What is the Mirror Dimension?" The question came from Banner, whose tousled hair was the only thing still touched by the remnant of sleep; his eyes were alert and focused.

"It is a parallel world to the one we are living in now and identical in every way. The most skilled of us use it as our training ground where we practice our most dangerous spells, as it is a contained space that allows none of the magical backlash to touch and affect the real world."

"And?" The look in Thor's eyes hardened, sensing Stephen's hesitation. "What else is it for?"

"It is a prison." Wong decided to bite the bullet. "Our sling rings are the only way out."

Thor turned his steely gaze back on the Sorcerer Supreme. "Please tell me you have foreseen this coming and provisioned Loki with this ring, and the knowledge on how to use it."

Stephen's breath died in his throat. He could not answer.

A bone-rattling roar erupted from deep within Thor and with a single swipe of his hand, sent the heavy round table made of unmovable granite and marble toppling onto its side, its gilded legs narrowly missing Bruce who sidestepped just in time.

Valkyrie was by the King's side in an instant. "Majesty."

For a wild second, Stephen feared Thor would strike the Valkyrie down, but he finally covered the appeasing hand she had laid on his arm with his own in the end. Thor visibly took a few deep breaths to calm the berserker in him down.

"You will find him, and you will bring him home." Thor's low rumbling voice reverberated throughout the entire room.

 _Or so help me God someone is going to pay._

Stephen did not need to be a mind-reader to decipher the hidden threat in Thor's eyes.

"There's another thing we haven't tried," Wong said hesitantly. "If tracking by strands of hair failed, we can attempt to track him by something…stronger."

Thor instantly looked hopeful but the light in his eyes died as quickly as it had come when Wong gave voice to the one thing that managed to strike even more fear in his heart.

"Blood."

* * *

"Finally. A face." Loki did not turn, but he straightened his shoulders to attention as one would, had he eyes on the back of his head. "A face that I liken to a shadow and thus I call you a shadow for want of calling you by your true name."

"The name is Karl Mordo."

"And what are you, Karl Mordo?"

"Just a man. With a purpose." The man had the intense brown eyes of uncompromising conviction. "An upholder of justice."

 _Oh Norns. A fanatic._

Loki turned around very slowly. "Whose justice?"

Mordo did not answer.

"The Order of the Masters of the Mystic Arts has never been this interested in me." Loki worded the question casually in a flippant remark. "Until you."

"I am not here in that capacity." Loki detected a hint of bitterness in the human sorcerer's voice, birthed from the pain of betrayal and – what was it – disappointment? "Not anymore."

"I see." Loki smiled in conspiratorial understanding. He raised his hand and his seiðr rebounded almost immediately, as if bounced off a surface. A reflective surface. Of mirrors. Thousands upon thousands of mirrors.

"Is this the cage in which you seek to imprison me?"

"Yes. From which I intend to release you once my duties have been duly fulfilled."

"One wonders of the charges pressed upon him to deserve such…punishment, as one must." Loki's eyes saw no physical barriers yet, he could sense the invisible walls closing him in. _Containing_ him.

"The bill comes due."

"And you're what, its Collector?"

"If you must call it something, then yes, I accept the name." Mordo straightened visibly. "For no one but I had the sense enough to right the wrongs committed by so many. Not even the great Doctor Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, for his namesake was just as heinous and self-serving, so why would he be any different."

"And yet your eyes tell me a different story. The story of a betrayal paid upon betrayal given." Loki came closer. "If only the Ancient One knew of your part in this mutiny, she would turn in her cold, dark grave."

"You knew of her."

"Oh, Mr. Mordo."

"Master Mordo."

"Surely not. A renegade calls not himself what he seeks to break away from." Loki shook his head in mock disbelief, marvelling at the cheek of him.

And yet there was something in him that Loki recognised of his old self, from his least lucid days in the past. Something that told him this was no ordinary man. "You come from nobility."

Mordo did not speak, his eyes blazing with the burning question of before still unanswered.

"Seiðr calls out to seiðr alike, Mr. Mordo. I chanced upon your former master when she was but a girl, fleeing the Massacre of Glencoe in the midst of the Jacobite uprising, was it in…1690? 1692?" Loki waved a hand. "My memory escapes me. Her entire clan was murdered you see. Warm in their beds, slaughtered. But blood is blood, and blood will be cold when it drains like so."

Loki slashed his dagger across the palm of his hand and blood dripped onto the grass…and yet the blood seeped not into the ground, only hovering on the crystalline floor. " _Fascinating_." Loki grinned, all teeth bared. "It is truly the perfect prison."

"What we do here does not affect the outside world." Mordo twirled his Staff in his hand. "You could have just asked, there was no need for drama. Your tall tales shall hear no more of you when I strip you of your powers, for what are you if not a mere mortal like me?"

"Mr. Mordo. It heartens me that you should seek the pleasure of my company and to share your…delusions of grandeur, for really, if circumstances were different-" Loki's voice turned sharp as razor, "You and I could have been friends."

Mordo only gazed at him steadily.

"Why me?"

"It is not you personally, Prince."

Loki raised an eyebrow coolly. "Forgive me if I am not convinced."

"Stephen Strange needs to be stopped. His crimes against the natural order of the universe do not befit his station as the Sorcerer Supreme, Protector of the Earth."

"Pray tell, Mordo. What unforgiveable deeds has he committed that you would resort to…" Loki looked around his glass prison, "This?"

"I assume you are acquainted with a former friend of mine, the Master Wong?" Mordo threw the name casually to the wind. "When I said 'former' I did not mean that we had a fall-out, simply that he is not supposed to be alive."

"He was utterly and truly dead when Stephen Strange invoked the power of the Eye of Agamotto to unimpale him and thus return his breath and to all life."

Loki was silent. When he spoke it was without malice. "I have died not once, not twice, but three times returned. What is one death but a speck of dust in the universe and should the Norns see fit to return him, who are we to judge?"

Loki could see the conflict warring in Mordo's eyes. "We do not get to judge, no, but we also do not get to _choose_."

 _Choose who to kill. Choose who to save. Choose who to bring back from the dead._

"You fatalistic bastards, all of you lot." Loki's voice rose in anger. "You have no understanding of the multiverse, the millions upon millions of realities wherein the entirety of space and time is so intertwined and so compressed that you could not accept a world in which your friend could both live and be dead at the same time?"

"Not when we are the ones burdened with the task to keep it separate! And pure! Untainted!"

"Listen to yourself! You are lost in a _lie_. The biggest lie in the universe. _Nothing_ is set in stone."

"No, _you_ are the one lost, not I. For all you claim to know, you have not sought to understand the kind of man you have consorted with, have you? Or was his dark magic the only thing you desired from him?" Mordo sneered.

"What?"

"The lie you are still trying to hide from me right now." Mordo dared call his bluff with an air of authoritative austerity that made Loki seeth.

"I smelled it then, I can smell it now. Your glamour is nothing but decoration."

"What is it you want?"

"That babe in your _womb_."

Loki's heart seized.

"It is an impossible child." His blood chilled to ice in his veins at Mordo's words.

"It cannot be born."

Loki began to laugh.

Loki laughed. He could not for the life of him, stop laughing. He laughed till tears ran down his face in rivulets and his chest clamoured for release in desperate attempts for breath and the peculiar sensation devoured any capacity for real thought and he realised he could forgo breathing if he could just laugh and laugh and never stop-

How one could laugh so much yet harbour so much pain, so much wretched bitterness in his heart that if it were not for his unborn son kicking wildly in his belly, he would think naught of reaching inside his chest and ripping his heart out while it was still beating.

"Of all the things-" Loki cupped a hand to his eyes to halt the flow of tears, but to no avail. "Of all the things, all the reasons the universe could conjure to wish my death upon me and curse my existence into eternal damnation – " He choked on a sob of laughter. "You brought me this?"

"You seek to kill me because I _dared_ to be with _child_?"

"You are an abomination of nature."

"I have been called many things in my lifetime, Mr. Mordo, but never that."

"Do not take it personal." Mordo repeated, almost kindly. "You cannot help being what you are."

"And what exactly am I?"

"A man carrying another man's child. A life conceived by dark sorcery is a life forfeit."

"Oh Sorcerer…" Loki leaned his head back as far as it would go, the slant of his jawline just angles shy off a straight stairway to the heavens, his neck so stretched in his effort not to break into peals of laughter. "I have never pitied a man as do I pity you here and now, for in no one's face but yours have I seen clearest the true blessings of ignorance. To think you know everything, when you know absolutely nothing."

"No man has the right to interfere with the natural order. Not without consequences. That I know."

"Shall I convince you otherwise?"

And Loki dropped his Aesir form, his true Jotunn skin as blue as the sky, his eyes as red as blood. "I am no more and no less a man nor a woman than you, Mr. Mordo. We are a people different from you yet pure. We procreate, we sire and we bear children but without the inconvenience of gender for we have none; I am the mother and I am the father, all in one and all in name."

Loki allowed his icy countenance to settle in a cloud of steam as he gazed at Mordo through red-filmed eyes.

"Will this save us the spilling of blood today, Sorcerer?"

Mordo did not let his surprise show. When he spoke, his voice was steady, almost respectful.

"You are mistaken, Loki the Undying. My intention was never to kill. All I strive to do is to restore the balance and re-establish the natural order so beings like you cease to harness the power of the cosmos for your own selfish purposes and pursuits."

Loki's voice was cut steel and iron, sharp and hard. "You will not kill me, yet you will take my child."

"Just you and me and the skewed balance of the universe."

"Why?" Loki's voice was contemplative, quiet. "Why still do you seek to harm me when I have shown you my true nature?"

"The Ancient One derived her powers and her long, albeit short, bout of immortality from the Dark Dimension. You claim to have lived even longer." Mordo pointed the Staff of the Living Tribunal in Loki's direction. "What matter of knowledge does one derive from that other than your explicit intimacy with the ways of the darkest magic and necromancy?"

Loki closed his eyes, resisting the crazy urge to roll them behind his eyelids. "This is madness."

So there was to be no peaceful ceasefire today as he had hoped for. That much was evident.

"The world is madness. There is too much chaos, and no order. Too much magic."

Mordo spread his hands and the Staff expanded to the length of his entire arm span, sinister and forbidding, "Too many sorcerers."

"Oh I agree." Loki whispered, the look in his eyes pure venom. "One too many."

He conjured a longsword of ice, frost and snow. Though he would prefer his daggers to any other weapon anytime of the day, close hand-to-hand combat would only place him in more peril than he already was.

"Let's overcome this impasse, shall we? You lay claim to the life of my unborn son as if his death is yours to reap. What is that vulgar saying you humans always say? Oh yes."

"Over my dead body." Loki's blade gleamed as he pointed it straight out.

"Come."

* * *

Stephen lifted his hand in the air as if reaching out for something, his confirmatory nod indicating to Wong that they had indeed found the right place.

They were now standing on the edge of the cliff and Thor felt a sense of jamais vu descend over him; this was where he and Loki had said their goodbye to Odin, a place of peace and calm and of deep sorrow…yet the familiarity of it had been replaced by something tingling, just hovering in the air like petrichor – a sinister ambience that rendered all the bittersweet memories of his Father's passing stale and diluted.

"Are you telling us Loki is right here, and that he can see us but we cannot see him?"

"Yes."

He and Wong had repetitively attempted to enter the Mirror Dimension but felt their physical bodies repelled every time. The fact that they could see neither Loki nor Mordo confirmed Stephen's suspicions. "The powers Mordo has siphoned off the others have heightened his own greatly. He has fortified the Mirror Dimension, barring all entry and exit save for which he chooses to allow."

"Did your spell tell us how much blood has been spilled?" Thor asked lightly. The question in his eyes was evident. Was Loki still alive? "Does he yet live?"

"I do not know." Stephen always told the truth. For all his photographic memory, he had never been very good at remembering lies so he stayed well away from telling them.

"Guys, guys, I know it's all doom and gloom right now, but-" Bruce did that thing with his hand again where he looked like he wanted to pet everyone, "Let's just stay positive, alright? Loki is strong, he will not go down without a fight."

Valkyrie uncrossed her arms and her bosom swelled as the weight of Bruce's words strengthened her resolve. "I have faith in Loki."

"But from what we can tell from the blood, it is indeed Loki's, except we really don't know how much there is of it, yes?" Bruce looked expectantly at Wong, who nodded in affirmation. "Thor, I think I'd better check out the healing halls, wake everyone up, make everything ready – this is an all-hands-on deck situation." He looked around at everyone. "When you have freed Loki, I will be waiting."

Thor's eyes were misty when he gripped the physicist's arms in gratitude. "Thank you, Bruce."

"Don't thank me yet." And Bruce broke into a jog back toward the royal compound.

Thor looked out beyond the coastline. In the inky blackness of the night, the horizon was a mash of blacks and greys, the moonlight being the only source of light; it shone bright and ever observing, never interfering.

"He is trapped in here and there is nothing we can do to help him."

Strange's mind was racing. Too much time had elapsed and not knowing the fate of Loki and their unborn baby was driving him insane with pure, unadulterated fear.

"Kaecilius drew on Dormammu's strength to fold time and space in the real world when we last fought in the Mirror Dimension." Stephen's heart picked up pace, and his face grew hot, his tongue thick and dry.

"Strange," Wong said warningly. He shook his head. _Do not go down that road._

"You are doing that again, that exchange of knowing looks." Thor demanded, "Tell me what you know and what you intend to do."

"The Book of Cagliostro contains a spell that opens a pathway to the Dark Dimension where an entity called Dormammu resides. It is Dormammu's power that allowed a former enemy to manipulate the Mirror Dimension and bend it to his will, breaking down the barriers between the world within and our reality."

"Strange, you need to think this through. Dabbling in the Dark Dimension was what started all this mess in the first place! Think of what happened to the Ancient One," Wong growled.

"This dark power you wish to summon. Will it save my brother?"

"Loki does not possess the sling ring he requires to escape. I need to break him free."

"Will it unleash devastation and bring nothing but strife and misery?" Thor gripped Stormbreaker tighter. "Will it consume you?"

For a heartbeat, Stephen thought he could glimpse the wavering uncertainty and concern in the Thunderer's eyes. When Stephen did not answer, Thor took that as answer enough.

"Then I will not have it," Thor said adamantly. "I know Loki and I know I speak his mind in this matter. I assure you, as certain as the love I hold for my brother, that he will not have it as well."

Thor lifted his chin, his handsome face determined and his stance unfaltering. "This I speak true from the very core of my being."

Stephen felt panic clench his heart. "Loki is in mortal danger, Thor. I cannot sta-"

Thor shook his head and lifted a hand.

"Can't you feel it, Stephen?" Thor's nose was upturned, his head cocked to one side as if sniffing the air, his single blue eye shining with heightening excitement. "Can't you feel Loki's magic?"

* * *

The tip of Loki's sword had left a deep graze along Mordo's cheekbone and the frostbite had begun to set in, the blackened wound gaping and wet with ichor.

Mordo charged again, his Staff flickering brilliantly in the dark and Loki's lightning reflexes guided his movements as they had a thousand times before, fluid and agile and one with the wind –

This was the dance, the intoxicating dance of determination and adrenaline and survival instincts and the desire of holding on to the one thing that was most precious to Loki right now that he simply could not lose and must protect –

Loki sidestepped what would have been a devastating front kick to the belly and darted to Mordo's right side, his one eye now blinded by the black ice of frostbite, and swung the ice sword in a broad arc, narrowly missing Mordo's hip had it not been for the Staff. Pushed back by the erupting backlash of magic from the collision, Loki crouched to one knee and gracefully slid across the grass.

"Can you feel that, Sorcerer?" Loki felt the vibration all around him, his senses alighting to the familiar tingling of static electricity.

Loki could not see worth a damn thing in the pitch blackness of the night, save for the moonlight glinting off his blade and his armour. But he could sense his brother's presence, he could feel it in his bones and every fibre of his being.

He purred, "Have you met my brother, Thor?"

He could not see him, but Loki knew he was here.

Thor was here. Thor had come.

"There is no escaping the Mirror Dimension."

"Oh no, I have heard. It is inescapable, certainly not without your…" Loki wriggled his fingers, "Ring things."

If he could feel Thor's powers shudder against the walls of this prison, that only meant one thing. It had walls. And walls could be taken down.

And magic walls? _Well_.

Loki slowly climbed to his feet. "I have no need for your trinkets."

He sheathed his icy sword. Now his hands were free. He opened them, palms wide toward Mordo, the tips of his blue fingers shining black like onyx -

"For I am Loki, Son of Odin, Brother of Thor, Prince of Asgard."

Loki reached deep inside him for the one true weapon that belonged to him by right of blood, heritage -

"The Rightful King of Jotunheim."

And by law of nature

"I am no _man_."

The Casket of Ancient Winters roared to life in his hands, a brilliant blue light bathing the night sky in a glittering shower of slate, ice and fog, and Loki could feel the ancient magic flow through him like a conduit as it worked to devour everything in its icy maw in a hail of frost and shards of crystal -

"I am a God."

* * *

"Get back!"

Stephen lurched forward and conjured the biggest shields he had ever invoked, and the gigantic Mandala loomed over them, its heat enveloping them all and protecting them from the sudden biting, freezing cold –

No, cold did not quite sufficiently describe it.

It was a glacial and frigid blast of raw power that was eating away at his own magic, his Mandala shields eroding by the second and flickering dangerously into oblivion.

"Loki!" Thor hollered from somewhere behind him.

"He's going to kill us all!" Valkyrie yelled, holding her arms over her head in the attempt to ride out the blizzard.

"Loki!" Thor roared again, but his voice was immediately lost to the howling icy wind, "You're free! Close the Casket!"

Stephen looked around wildly, the entire landscape was fast turning into an icy wasteland –

 _Is this Loki's magic?_

With renewed resolve, Stephen pumped more magic into his shield; he knew his teeth were chattering, he could not feel it but he could hear them gnash against each other. He could not feel his fingers.

 _"Loki."_

He tried to concentrate, his vision blurring from the gale and whiteout.

 _"Loki!"_

 _"Stephen?"_

Loki's voice came across the connection, weak and thready.

Stephen's heart leapt to his throat.

 _"Loki. You're safe now. You're free."_

What had Thor said?

 _"Loki. Close the Casket."_

And slowly, yet surely, the storm of ice and hail began to subside and when Stephen could finally see without tearing, he looked up into the sky-

A mere twenty feet away, Loki was afloat a shimmering mist of eternal winter, his feet not quite touching the ground. He was clad in his Asgardian battle armour yet once again he was in his Jotunn form, long hair flowing behind him like black seaweed floating down water, and revealing his pale face, tinged with blue and lined with the marks of the Royal House of Laufey.

The Casket closed entirely and disappeared with a sleight of Loki's hands.

And Loki started to fall.

Stephen reached out a hand to conjure a Shield to catch the falling prince, but Stephen was too far, far too far.

The Cloak of Levitation shot out from behind him to try to break Loki's fall but it too, was too slow.

Loki hit the ground hard, landing on his back.

"Loki!" Thor thundered and ran toward his brother.

"Don't touch me." Out of breath from the fall and over-exerting his seiðr, Loki was at least conscious. He held out his hands, still blue and coated with thin ice. "Not yet. Give me – give me a minute."

"Loki." Thor dropped to his knees and for a second, looked determined to gather his brother in his arms, frostbite or no. He waited for a few long seconds and when Loki's blue skin finally receded, giving way to his familiar Aesir skin, Thor buried his face onto Loki's chest and fiercely embraced him with arms shaking from sheer relief.

"Thor," Loki breathed out, breaking into an exhausted smile. "It's nice to see you too."

"Are you hurt? Strange said you were bleeding, that was how we found you, show me where-"

"Thor, stop fussing." Loki pounded Thor's back to get him to ease his grip around him, "Help me up."

When Loki was finally steady on his feet, he looked around the icy tundra which stretched as far out as the eyes can see, and Loki faltered. "Thor. Is Asgard – did I hurt anyone?"

"No, Brother. You didn't." Thor held a steadying arm around his waist.

"Loki." Loki looked behind him and his eyes brightened, his smile softening.

"Stephen."

The Sorcerer Supreme rushed toward him and engulfed him in an embrace, before pulling back only to grab the sides of Loki's face and in full view of everyone, kissed him long and deep.

"God, Loki." Stephen's forehead was warm against Loki's cold skin. "You scared me."

"Mordo?" He whispered. "Did I kill him?"

The Cloak of Levitation lifted off Stephen's shoulders and flew toward Valkyrie who was standing guard over a crouched figure about thirty yards away. Loki felt a little stab of pain in his side at the sight of the figure lying prone and unmoving on the ground. Wong's hands were hovering over his former colleague and fellow Master, as he worked the spells to melt the ice and frost coating Mordo from head to toe. "He is still alive. But barely. He's dangerously hypothermic."

"Good," Loki breathed out shakily. One less thing to feel guilty about.

The shard of pain lanced through his abdomen again and this time it did not recede; in a matter of heartbeats, agony of the deepest, sharpest kind sank its talons into him, showing no signs of letting go no matter how he struggled to rein it in and control his breath -

"Stephen." Loki's face had gone as white as a sheet.

"Something's-" Loki grunted and dropped to his knees.

"Loki!"

The world tilted, faces swam, his desperate hands clawing at the invisible knives tearing through his stomach and at the same grabbing at everything he could reach for purchase, someone's arms - _Thor?_ – his clumsy fingers too many yet too few – he fisted the front of someone's clothes to keep from sinking but he was falling and falling

 _"Loki!"_

Loki would have spoken but for the pain

And everything went black.


	9. Chapter 9

As Thor ran like he had never run before, Loki awakened twice in his arms, and twice Loki screamed in pain, yet the latter scream was a mere shadow of the former. One pale hand lost precious grip around his midsection and when it slipped out from Thor's clumsy bridal carry and hung loose, Thor tightened his hold and let a roar – "Loki, don't you dare. Stay _awake_!"

Running and half-flying just a few steps ahead, Stephen had never been more relieved to see the gates of the Healing Halls. Bruce, likely having heard Thor's bellow, was already at the door, gowned and gloved.

"Dr. Banner, Code Red. Severe abdominal pain, minutes after fall from a height of about ten feet. Landed on his back. Glasgow Coma Scale 13 over 15 as off a minute ago, injuries sustained whilst in battle yet unknown. No evidence of any external bleeding except a laceration wound across the palm of the left hand – " Thor laid Loki gently down on the cot, and Stephen quickly got to work. "You. Scissors."

"Okay guys remember the drill, Primary Survey, quickly now." Stephen half-listened as Bruce droned on and gave out orders to his team of Healers, "Get me a blood pressure and the heart rate, use the high-flow mask, start the oxygen at 10 litres per minute and titrate, pulse ox is...88%? Okay, let's crank it up to 15 litres please - " and proceeded to cut Loki's trousers and clothes, using magic to ease the scissors through the seiðr-fortified leathers so they cut like butter despite his shaking hands.

Loki's torso was clean, his ivory skin unbreached, no doubt due to the protection conferred by his armour. His chest albeit shallowly, was still rising and falling at a normal rate. None of his limbs looked broken or deformed.

"Valkyrie, Thor, help me bend his knees and lift his legs, I need to see if he's bleeding." All pretence at modesty abandoned, Valkyrie and Thor stepped forward and each grabbed a milk-white thigh and pushed it upward into the lithotomy position. Stephen pulled in the examination light closer. To his relief, Loki was not bleeding from down below, but his relief did not last long.

"Blood pressure is 95/70, heart rate is 170 beats per minute, Doctor," a Healer reported. Banner exchanged a look of alarm with Stephen. It was way off Loki's baseline readings.

"Are the intravenous lines in? Good. Push 500cc of Hypertonic Saline now, we need to get the BP up."

"Hypertonic?" Stephen looked up, covering Loki from the groin below with a sheet.

"Loki's blood has a higher osmolarity than our physiologic 0.9%," Banner explained, "Is he bleeding out?"

"No. But he's bleeding somewhere." Stephen ran around the table, "You, you, you and you. Head, shoulders, hips, legs. Let's log-roll him now, on one, two, three-" Stephen examined the full length of Loki's back for any wounds and steps in the spine, although the likelihood of neurogenic shock was far-fetched, not with a heart rate that high –

What was he missing?

Whenever you're stuck, go back to Primary and Secondary Survey, a voice spoke in his head – it had been so long since Stephen's A&E rotation as a surgical intern, he was used to receiving his patients all diagnosed up for him and ready to be cut. Not to mention his obstetrics knowledge was very limited save for what he remembered from medical school and very brief internship but Stephen knew he could not let Loki down, not this time.

He ran his hands down Loki's abdomen again. Now that Loki was unconscious and unable to hold his glamour anymore, his bump was prominent for everyone to see and Stephen's heart began to race.

"Dr Banner, when you examined Loki the day before yesterday what was his fundal height?"

"Sixteen centimetres on the dot, corresponding to the expected period of gestation of sixteen weeks, give or take a few days. Why?"

 _Oh no._

"I think he's abrupting." Stephen was sure of it. Loki's bump was now of the size corresponding to a 20 weeks' pregnancy, and his abdomen was hard as a rock. Stephen held trembling fingers to his temples, desperately scouring his brain for any scrap of information, long archived into the deep recesses of his mind to try and fix this -

"What? What do you mean?" Banner had now replaced the face mask with a bag-and-valve mask, cupped tightly over Loki's nose and mouth, and was rigorously bagging away; Loki's respiratory effort was faltering, but soon the dropping pulse oximeter ceased its alarmed beeping as the oxygenation level picked up again.

"It's abruptio placentae." Stephen's heart hammered in his ribcage like a drum, his face hot, his chest so tight he could hardly breathe. It made perfect sense, the severe abdominal pain, the signs of hypovolaemic shock, the larger-than-date and the wooden hardness of the uterus, the fall, oh my _fuck_ the fall – "Most likely the placenta separated as a direct consequence of that fall he took."

"Oh s _hit_!" Banner cursed. "Are you sure? You said he wasn't bleeding!"

"What, what does that mean?" Thor demanded. "Strange?!"

 _How to put it in a way people could understand?_

"It must be a concealed abruption." Stephen gestured frantically in the attempt to convey the information, knowing he was offering little in the way of explanation; his hands were shaking too badly. "He's bleeding out internally into the potential space in between the afterbirth and the inner wall of the uterus, womb, whatever you call that muscular organ where the baby lies."

 _I am going to lose our baby._

If the baby stayed in, there was no doubt that he would die from hypoxia; take him out and the extreme prematurity offered no hope of survival at all.

Either way, he was going to lose.

And if Stephen could not stop the internal bleeding, he would lose Loki too.

 _I am going to lose them both._

"No, Stephen. Wipe that look off your face!" Thor slammed a hand on his shoulder, jarring it so violently a jolt of pain shot through Stephen's entire arm. "There must be a way to save him. Brother, please –" Stephen's eyes suddenly smarted, he was definitely not expecting _that._ "You are Loki's only hope! _My_ only hope!"

"Thor…" a soft whisper drifted from the cephalad direction of the bed.

"Loki!" Bruce moved from his position standing behind Loki's head to the side, giving way to Thor as the Thunderer's face loomed over Loki's looking down at him upside down, his giant hands cradling the sides of Loki's face as best as he could without obstructing the oxygen mask.

Loki could not speak, his eyes bright with tears, but to Thor's conflicted dismay, they were not tears of pain.

"No, don't you give me that look." Thor shook his vehemently. "Not from you."

It was the look that marked the disappearance of pain and the giving way to absolute calm and peace. The final look.

He had seen it once, on the desolate fields of Svartalfheim.

Loki had been bleeding to death then, too.

"Never again, Loki. _You promised_."

The dam finally broke and silent tears ran down the sides of Loki's face.

 _I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

Loki's head began loll to one side, his eyes losing focus. Thor began to chant- "No. No, no. Loki. No."

"Blood pressure has gone down to 80/60, heart rate now 55. He's hypotensive and bradycardic, we're losing him, Strange!" Bruce said urgently, trying very hard not to panic himself. "Have we finished running the saline? Okay, push some colloids now, 2 pints of Gelofusine, run them simultaneously - Get the crash cart ready!"

"I'm getting ready to intubate, Strange." Bruce's veins were turning a threatening shade of green against his neck. "What's the plan here? Emergency section? Hysterectomy? What?"

Stephen slapped the sides of his face twice and hard. Breathe. Control.

 _You've got this. You are Doctor Stephen Strange. What are you doing? Are you giving up?_

 _You don't know the_ ** _meaning_** _of the word._

"Wong. Come here." Wong who had just returned from attending to Mordo in the next room came closer.

Stephen gave him a brisk nod of the head, and at his signal, Wong slammed the heel of one hand full-force into his chest.

There was a collective gasp all around the room as Stephen felt himself hurtled out of his body, the weightless sensation a sheer respite from the foreboding heaviness of flesh and blood.

Valkyrie and Bruce were staring at him open-mouthed as his astral projection hovered over the gruesome scene below. Thor was in a world of his own, slumped face-down, forehead-to-forehead onto Loki's listing head. Stephen swooped down, trying to not think of the deathly pallor of Loki's still face.

"Illuminare," Stephen whispered, gently sliding two fingers an inch below the navel and right into Loki's bulging abdomen.

"Do you see that, Wong?" The spell transilluminated the insides of Loki's pelvic cavity and he immediately detected the pathology; with a twist of his fingers, the holographic 3D image of Loki's womb rotated 180 degrees, glowing a golden iridescent yellow but for the dark, ominous pooling of dark matter that could only be blood, concentrated in a particular area on the back wall of the uterus.

"See where the placenta separates from the posterior wall of the uterine cavity? It looks like a partial separation, it has not detached entirely at least – the uncontrolled heart rate must have been pumping blood non-stop into the space, explaining the amount of blood, there, right there-"

"I see it." Wong studied the hologram carefully. "Looks like the source of bleeding is localised but I think there is quite a significant number of torn vessels."

"If we can catch the bleeders, arrest the haemorrhage with a haemostatic spell, repair the damaged blood vessels, re-establish the vascular anastomoses between the foetal and maternal circulation, restore the lining of the uterus with a regeneration spell-"

"Then try to liquefy the clot," Wong murmured, catching Stephen's drift. He was a Master in healing spells and had taught Stephen most of what he knew. "Purify it and hopefully resorb the blood back into the circulation because that looks like he's lost at least a litre." Wong stared at him. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Stephen knew just what Wong was asking. Delivering the baby now to save the mother's life was what any other doctor in his position would do.

"Wong, look. That is my son in there." Stephen's eyes brimmed with tears. He could see the outline of his baby, small and perfect, his heart still beating furiously, still hanging in there – he was in the biggest dilemma of his life and all he could think of was the strong beating of that tiny, tiny heart.

"Loki will never forgive me if I don't at least try."

"Let's do this then." Golden circles of energy bloomed from Wong's fingers and he concentrated working his magic over Loki's abdomen.

"Thor, step aside. _Now_!" Stephen heard Bruce snap suddenly.

He swooped back down into his body and clumsily scrambled to his feet, before pushing Thor physically aside. "Let me see." Out of the corner of his eye, Stephen saw Valkyrie circling her arm around Thor's waist and cajoling him to stand back to let them work.

"He's stopped breathing." Stephen felt the words but let them run over him like water; this was just another patient, another day at the hospital. He would not lose himself to panic. He could not.

"Steady, Dr Banner." He handed him the laryngoscope, his hands shaking and numb. Loki's head now tilted back, he watched as Bruce inserted the laryngoscope gently, his face tight with determination. "You've preoxygenated him sufficiently. Easy does it. You need help with cricoid pressure?"

"No, I can see the vocal cords." Bruce reached out a hand, and Stephen chose the appropriate-sized endotracheal tube and placed it in his hand. Bruce slid it in with ease. "I'm in." He reconnected the oxygen tubing to the end of the breathing tube and bagged again, sighing in relief as Loki's chest began to rise symmetrically and the oxygen level picked up again.

"How is it going, Wong?"

"It's going," Wong answered tersely. By then, two other Healers had joined him and Loki's entire torso was enveloped in a golden dome of healing energy, thrumming with magic and seiðr. "The active bleeding's largely stopped, but it's still oozing and he's still losing precious blood. Now stop talking to me."

Stephen was about to join Wong to help him when a Healer suddenly called out in alarm, "Doctor!" She pointed at the glass panel on the wall where the vital signs were recorded and updated by the minute. "His Highness' heart rate is dropping. Blood pressure is unrecordable."

"No," Stephen whispered, aghast, his face white as paper. "How much whole blood do we have?"

"I've only managed to venesect three pints of blood from Loki during the short time we've been here," Bruce said, a haunted look in his eyes. He had had the insight to start saving Loki's blood for future use since they could not risk using blood products from another species for obvious reasons. "If we autotransfuse him now, that is it. We are all out."

 _Guess the future is now._

"Better use it now, Doctor. No time like the present," Stephen fought to keep his voice calm. A Healer rushed to a neighbouring annex and reappeared seconds later with three bags of blood in her hands which were quickly hung up on the IV drip stands.

All of a sudden, a loud beep emanated from the speakers.

"He's in asystole. Commence CPR!" Bruce handed the bag-valve mask to a Healer to take over and leaped onto the stool by the bedside, placing both hands on Loki's still chest. "Starting chest compressions."

In the background, Stephen heard a long, guttural wail. _Thor_.

A flicker of the overhead lights. A shadow fleeting past his peripheral vision. A whiff of sandalwood. Faint yet _there_.

"Wong, I have to go." Wong looked startled, before realisation dawned on him, and he nodded in mutual understanding.

"What! Where are you going?" Bruce's arms were shaking with exertion, determination and sheer will keeping him going. "Strange!"

Stephen paid him no heed. _God, Ancient One, the Norns, Fate, whatever, whoever You are, give me strength_. Gathering all resolve, he struck himself in the chest – and once again, he was air-borne.

Through sepia vision, he saw him.

Loki was standing at the foot of the bed, looking down at his own body. His face, pale but not as ashen as that of his mortal vessel lying on the bed, was impassive and unreadable. He turned toward Thor who by now was sitting on his haunches on the floor, his head in his hands, white-knuckled fingers all but nearly ripping his spiky blond hair off his scalp. Valkyrie stood ramrod straight next to her King, her eyes unblinking but stormy with tumultuous emotions, her full lips thinned to a tight, white line.

Loki's gaze lingered on his brother for a little while longer before his silhouette turned and slipped through the door.

Stephen flew toward him and grabbed him around the wrist - "Where do you think you're go-?"

"-ing." And found himself standing on the cliff, overlooking the ocean.

"Help me understand something, Doctor." Loki's eyes were as green as ever even in astral form as they stared out into the horizon smattered with streaks of gold and orange; dawn was starting to break. "Why do I find myself here again?"

"You're dying."

"Ah." Loki asked curiously but not overly concerned. "And you? Are you dying too?"

" _Yes_." Stephen's eyes filled with tears. He was speaking only the truth.

"You cannot come with me, Strange. It isn't your time."

"Neither is it yours!" Stephen grabbed his arms and whirled him around to face him; Loki looked no less beautiful in this form, an ethereal vision with face serene in the absence of pain, eyes as clear as green sapphire.

"Look at me." Stephen reached up and cradled the sides of Loki's face, recalling their son, how perfect their son had looked, willing the images to flow through his trembling fingers, "Look _into_ me."

"Do you see it? Do you see him?" Loki's eyes, wide and unseeing, yet seeing everything all the same, widened in surprise and instantly glistened with tears. "Our baby still lives, Loki."

Silent tears rolled down Loki's face, streaking silver tracks down the hollows of his cheeks.

"You want to know what else I see?" Stephen asked fiercely.

"You speak of divination, Strange." Loki whispered, shaking his head – "You should not!"

"I hold _time_." Stephen pressed their foreheads against each other, and their images filtered through faster, wilder, in rushes of vivid colours – "I _see_ time, Loki."

"I see a million possibilities, with some of you in them, with none of you in many. But there is one that I harbour the greatest longing for-"

Stephen gripped Loki's face tighter and kissed him hard and kissed him desperately, "Come back. Come back to me."

"Stephen…"

"You and me, together. We'll tell tales of magic...of sorrow and of joy…and of love - "

 _"Love?"_ Loki's lips moved soundlessly around the word.

The air stirred around them, warm and tranquil.

"I love you."

The moment the words left his lips, Stephen knew he meant them. He did not know when it started, maybe it was there from the very beginning, that perhaps from the first time he held Loki in his arms, he had wanted him. He had been blind, so blind.

Stephen did not think it possible but a chill ran down his spine nonetheless. Loki wavered and Stephen gripped him tighter, terrified to let go -

"The last woman I loved left because she could not share my world, nor I hers. But _you_ …" Stephen's voice cracked. "Perhaps you are my gift. And I _love_ you."

"Don't leave me. Not now." _Not when we have an eternity ahead of us._

"I don't know how," Loki whispered, his voice raw with tears.

"Look for the magic. _Feel_ the magic running through you. You can feel mine, Wong's, we are all trying to save your life. But the strongest magic is you, Loki." Stephen's breath caught in his throat. "Please, for the love you bear our son, save him. You are the only one who can."

 _Save yourself. Save me._

In the next instant when Loki lunged at him, Stephen was ready to catch his lips –

And Stephen found himself returned to the Healing Room, catapulted back into his body that had been dumped unceremoniously onto the floor, leaning against a medication trolley. His heart racing thunderously in his chest, Stephen clambered to his feet, his limbs clumsy and disjointed. "Banner?" He whispered anxiously.

"We're back in sinus rhythm." Bruce's grin was exhausted, but wide, the widest Stephen had ever seen him smile, "The Prince is back with us, ladies and gentlemen."


	10. Chapter 10

It was a solemn ritual. One he had conducted so many times he had memorised all the steps by heart.

He shone his light into eyes that had once looked upon him with kindness and patience. Stephen remembered the look of disgust, disappointment and disdain in them on the day they parted ways. Now the pupils stared back at him, blank and unresponsive.

He gently injected ice-cold water into each ear in turn and the empty eyes remained still, moving neither left nor right, staring dead ahead.

The corneal response, the cough and gag reflexes, they all too proved absent and truly gone. All the primitive brain reflexes he had tested, all null and desolate with no glimmer of hope in sight.

With a heavy hand, Stephen disconnected the respirator and watched. He waited with bated breath, he waited for longer than he knew he should and usually did, for the return of spontaneous breathing that he knew, deep down in his heart, was never going to come.

"You have changed, Stephen Strange."

Stephen reconnected the ventilator. He did not turn around. There was no need to.

"As I fleeted in and out of my body, trying in vain to gain hold of my vessel once more, I watched you from the shadows." The disembodied voice spoke in nonchalance as if it mattered not in the slightest that the conversation be one-sided.

"You could have used the Eye of Agamotto to try and save your beloved Prince."

Stephen's hand stilled over the cold skin of Mordo's eyelids. He was in the midst of closing them.

"Loki never needed saving from anyone."

He could sense Mordo's astral form nod as if in affirmation behind him.

"I am the dying proof of that."

"I am afraid you are no longer even that, Mordo."

Stephen had hoped against hope the hypothermia had protected Mordo's brain function somewhat. Yet for all that Wong's magic had done to thaw his body, Mordo's own intrinsic magic, the myriad of healing spells and resuscitative efforts of the Healing Halls of Asgard…they were all no match against the savage, icy magic of the Casket of Ancient Winters.

"So this is it. The point of no return." The finality in Mordo's words struck a chord in Stephen's heart. There was no challenge in them, no defiance. Only acceptance and surrender.

The Stephen of old would have invoked the Eye in a heartbeat if it meant saving Mordo's life, as he did Wong's. But Stephen knew better than to invalidate Mordo's autonomy, a man so strong and principled in his convictions that Mordo would rather die with honour than live in infamy.

"I cannot even die in the right order. The brain dies first before the body." Mordo's astral form flickered, but his voice never wavered.

" _I_ am the abomination."

To think Stephen had so many questions he wanted answered.

Why Loki. Why their unborn son. Why Pangborn.

Why _him_.

Now standing here in this cold, cold room with the empty shell of a man who was once his mentor, his shield-brother, his rival, his _enemy_ -

"Goodbye, my friend."

Stephen's eyes filled.

The questions no longer mattered.

"Goodbye, Mordo."

* * *

Stephen slipped into the chamber where Loki was resting but stopped short at the sight of the figure seated on an armchair by the bedside. His back was turned but there was no mistaking who it was. Stephen gave little attention to the pangs of disappointment in his gut and turned to close the door behind him to give the brothers some privacy –

"Please do not leave on my account, Doctor." Thor's blond head never did turn to look but Stephen knew better now what made Thor so…Thor. He would rather accept the surprises than be awed by them. For all Stephen knew, the Viking God probably had eyes on the back of his head. It would not be the strangest thing he had seen.

A gauntleted hand waved to the empty chair on the other side of Loki's bed.

"Come. Sit here with us a while."

They sat in silence. For once it was not uncomfortable. Perhaps the sight of Loki lying peacefully on the bed and the golden hue of the healing dome enveloping his sleeping form was the grounding element Thor and Stephen needed to tolerate each other's company.

"How long till he wakes?

"The amount of blood that has seeped into the wall of his womb was not insignificant, the swelling needs to be undone." Stephen clasped his hands in his lap. He would have rubbed his thumbs together had he not forced them to still; it was a nervous gesture he realised he had developed.

"I intend to keep him asleep perhaps for a few days, a week at most. The involution of the muscle wall back to its rightful thickness I suspect would be very painful otherwise."

Thor seemed satisfied with his explanation. "Loki has experienced enough pain for a lifetime."

Stephen's heart skipped a beat.

"I'm sorry."

Thor looked at him sharply, his mismatched eyes unreadable.

"Why are you apologising?"

Stephen's throat constricted.

Why shouldn't he apologise? Mordo had only targeted Loki because of him. He could not stop Mordo the first time from cornering and attacking Loki two measly blocks away from his doorstep.

His carelessness had allowed the Spell of Revelation to spread its fiery clutches and nearly consume Loki in the throes of its fire. He was the one who had left Loki unprotected and allowed him to be taken under the very noses of Asgard's King, the Valkyrie and the Sorcerer Supreme. And the gravest mistake of all-

"I let him fall." Stephen closed his eyes at the memory. "I was right there, and I did not catch him."

Thor became so still Stephen feared the God of Thunder had stopped breathing. He had certainly stopped blinking.

"Do you know how many times I have been in your position, Strange?"

Stephen unclasped his hands. He slowly leaned back in his chair. The atmosphere had suddenly become heavy, almost stifling, as if the air itself had stopped moving.

"The first time he was hurled off the Bifrost after our stupid fight to dangle over the vast emptiness of The Void. I was right there."

Stephen felt the vacuum pressing heavily on his chest -

"The second time, Loki impaled Algrim the Kursed from behind in the attempt to save my life, and I watched the Monster grab my brother and pull him in onto the very blade Loki had thrust into his back. I was right there."

The pale hand closest to him twitched on top of the covers, but Loki did not awaken. Stephen stared at the long, tapered fingers and longed to touch. He could not; he was frozen.

"The third time…" Thor's voice trailed, his eyes haunted and distant. "The third time, the Mad Titan wrapped his giant hand around my brother's neck, choked the life out of him, snapped his spine before throwing his corpse at my feet. And I was right there."

How _peculiar_ it was that Stephen was finding it difficult to breathe himself.

"So don't apologise, Stephen." Thor shook his head adamantly. "Loki may be many unsavoury things but he is a proud, lonely, and selfless soul."

"It shames me to say it but I love my brother all the more for it." Thor propped an elbow on the armrest and lifted his hand to his pursed lips, his eyes clouded. "For it means he would never begrudge me my failures."

Stephen unconsciously clasped his hands tighter. "I have come to fear that you would begrudge me mine."

"On the contrary. You found him, and you brought him home."

Stephen exhaled, not realising he had been holding his breath, "Thor, I -"

"Thank you." Thor would hear none of it. He shook his head. "You saved my brother's life, and I am forever in your debt."

"I…" Stephen swallowed against the imperceptible shake in his voice, "I almost didn't. I could have killed him, and our child."

Thor stared at him for a long time. "Would have, could have."

Stephen almost laughed out loud. The sheer absurdity of having his own words thrown back at him jolted him out of self-pity. "Would have, could have."

"But didn't." Thor reiterated.

Stephen felt his eyes water once more. He blinked the dust away and focused on Loki's face, his sharp, aristocratic features relaxed, his alabaster skin glowing in deep, medicated slumber.

"Thank you, Thor."

Thor nodded once in that unpretending yet magnanimous way of his.

"So…you're here to stay then?"

Stephen knew not if what Thor meant by 'here' be this sterile, impersonal Healing Chamber, or Asgard, or in Loki's life in general but he realised he did not care which one way or the other.

"I love him." Stephen said, almost stubbornly.

Thor gazed at him coolly and did not speak. When he finally did, he did it with a smile, gentle and loving, like the ones he had always reserved for Loki.

"I expect no less from you, Brother."

* * *

Stephen leaned his head against the pillar, looking out into the distance. The sun had risen over Asgard, the lights of the morning warm and pleasant on his face yet doing little to lift the deep melancholy in his heart. Despite the desire to stay longer, the Healers would not be hampered in their ministrations and he had left Loki's healing chamber unwillingly – in other words, he had been chased out. He mused, thinking of the countless number of times he himself had chased annoying, nosy relatives out of patients' rooms.

His small smile disappeared. The melancholy had less to do with being denied the pleasure of watching Loki get a sponge bath but more to do with the glinting object he now held in his hand, lightweight yet unbearably heavy.

The Cloak, as if sensing his heartbreak, lightly caressed his cheek and wrapped around his shoulders tighter.

"I'm sorry about your friend."

A sudden voice jolted him out of his reverie.

"Dr. Banner." Stephen unconsciously closed his palm over the sling ring. "Sorry, I didn't notice you."

Stephen sensed his hesitation, and decided he did not want to be alone after all. "Please, do join me if you wish."

Bruce soundlessly hefted himself onto the balcony, wavering as he grabbed onto one of the marble columns for support. "Oh my _god,_ couldn't you find elsewhere to brood, somewhere not so dangerous?"

"You forget, Dr Banner. I can fly."

Bruce snorted. "Flying is over-rated. Everyone can do it now, Thor, Tony, you – " He waved a dismissive hand.

Stephen allowed a reluctant smile, before falling into solemnness once more.

"We stopped being friends toward the end." He inhaled deeply, voice tinged heavy with regret. "His choice, not mine."

"I know a thing or two about falling out of friendships," Bruce leaned back onto the palms of his hand, his legs dangling even further out the open air below. "In the end you can almost never recall who was at fault. In the end there is only loss."

Stephen knew just what the physicist was talking about. The disbanding of the Avengers had been the talk of the town for months, and the sorcerer community was in the right to be concerned. One less protector of the Earth was one more enemy allowed to go unchecked.

"You know…you are cleverer than you look."

Bruce only smiled. "Not as clever as you think. The clever thing to do right now is catch up on some sleep and yet here I am, sitting here on this balcony with you and watching the sunrise like some kind of Western Oldie."

A chaffinch, a bright-blue and red little thing, flew past him and perched on the balustrade. Another one joined soon after, this time a grey with terracotta undertones for its feathers. Stephen watched as they bristled against each other.

"He was the first friend I made at Kamar-Taj."

"Kamar-Taj. Is that like your magic school? Your Hogwarts?"

Stephen rolled his eyes. " _Yes_ , Banner."

Bruce had a longing look on his face. "I'd love to see it. Hey, do you think I can come around one day?"

Stephen blinked a few times before answering in a resigned voice. "Sure, Bruce. I don't see why not."

Bruce looked at the object in Stephen's palm. "That his?"

Stephen nodded. "If it weren't for him, I doubt the Ancient One would have accepted me into the Order. He was my mentor of sorts. Taught me. Trained me. We fought together, and dare I say, even saved the world together."

"And now…" Stephen gazed out into nothingness, his eyes hollow. "Everything's slipped out of my hands, like a rug's been pulled under me, you know? All of a sudden, everything's turned to _shit_ and now he's dead."

"Guess we will never know what another person truly thinks unless he tells us, Strange."

"See that's exactly the thing. He _did_ tell me." Stephen raked a hand through his hair. "Our paths diverged, but as Sorcerer Supreme, as his _friend_ , I should have done something, said something, pulled him _back_ -"

" 'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both. I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.' " Bruce recited softly. "You are not responsible for the path he chose for himself, Strange."

Stephen's eyes smarted in the morning breeze. He sniffed. "You do realise you have butchered one of the greatest poems in English literature, don't you?"

"Unintentionally besmirched, maybe, but not butchered, no." Bruce took off his spectacles and wiped them on his shirt. His eyes looked sunken and tired. "Not to the extent that anyone could fail to grasp the meaning."

"The power of words." Stephen's heart felt lighter and heavier at the same time. It was a peculiar sensation. "That poem drove the poet's friend into joining the first World War, did you know?"

"Equally it could have persuaded him to stay put at home, where he would have been safe and died decades later of old age, warm in his bed."

"Your friend Mordo made his choice and here? Now? _That_?" Bruce pointed at the sling ring in Stephen's hand, "are the consequences of his choice."

"Lament not what you have lost, but what you have found."

"Is that another poem?"

"No, that's all me." Bruce grinned. After a beat, "You have been to see Loki?"

Stephen nodded.

"I wanted to check on him but the Healers wouldn't let me. I think I'm starting to annoy them, but my OCD just wouldn't let me sleep." Bruce yawned. "His last vital signs were good, and baby's heart rate was good too but I just – well. I just wanted to make double sure."

"Thank you. I couldn't have done it without you." Stephen took a deep breath. "And I'm sorry for all the stupid things I said."

"You mean about my useless PhDs?"

"I…don't believe I actually used the word useless.."

Bruce only laughed.

"But thank you. I owe you my life."

Bruce's forehead wrinkled in confusion.

"Uh…did something else happen? Are we talking about the same thing –"

"Loki is my life," Stephen said softly and a strange sense of calmness washed over him. "And so is the baby in his belly."

He straightened up, his back cricking at having slouched for so long.

"You saved them both. And I would hug you, but I think I've overdrawn my limit of tender gestures for today so – " Stephen held out a hand, but it was ceremoniously ignored and he suddenly found himself in a tight embrace and both of them would have toppled over the edge had it not been for The Cloak's fast action to right their precarious position, "Bruce!"

" _God,_ I was so scared."

The physicist released him just as suddenly as he had hugged him.

"Of sending us over the edge to plummet to our deaths? I wouldn't have guessed," Stephen said sarcastically.

Bruce shook his head in all seriousness. "We were so close to losing them both, Strange. _So_ close."

Stephen's eyes drifted to gaze intently at the golden doors of the Healing Chamber, inside which Loki was recuperating, slowly healing; safe and out of danger.

For now.

A soft whisper, "Don't I know it."


	11. Chapter 11

"There's fish, cheese or chicken." A sultry voice suddenly jolted him out of his reverie somewhere from behind him, before a tray filled with various dishes and a goblet of ice-cold water appeared at his elbow. "Don't know what you like so I got a bit of everything."

Stephen looked up in surprise.

The Valkyrie's nose flared slightly and as if an afterthought, she added hastily, "King's Orders."

Stephen looked at the offering, feeling strangely dissociated. For the life of him, he could not muster the tiniest sliver of appetite, despite the hours that must have passed. He could not even remember what his last meal was.

She shrugged. "You haven't had anything to eat in almost a day. Can't have the good doctor collapsing on us now, can we."

"Thanks." Stephen muttered.

He ignored her and continued to watch Loki as he slept.

The Valkyrie walked over to the opposite side of the bed and stood behind the chair Thor had previously sat in. She looked tired and haggard. It showed in her voice.

"I'm still pissed off at you, you know."

"Duly noted, Madam." Stephen too, was too exhausted beyond measure to argue. "I don't know what I can possibly say to endear you to me, and frankly, I don't care." He inhaled deeply as if bracing himself, "Just so long as you look after him and my baby in my stead when I'm not here."

"Thinking of going somewhere?"

Stephen did not answer. He could not stop thinking of Mordo's body, fast losing heat in the mortuary. But he also knew there was no way he was going to leave Loki, not when he needed him most. "You ever wish you could be in two places at one time?"

"Oh yes. Last time I wished that was two days ago when your rogue sorcerer was fighting me one second and abducted the Prince of Asgard the next and nearly magicked His Highness dead." Valkyrie said flatly, "That's why I hate magic."

"Look, Lady," Stephen sighed. "I'm sorry, alright? I don't know if it makes any difference one way or another but yeah. There you have it."

The frosty silence was interrupted by a soft, mechanical beeping sound.

Valkyrie watched as Stephen leaned over Loki's sleeping form to tinker with the intravenous drug infusion system close to her side of the bed; the tubing had gotten caught and snagged against the bedrail.

Valkyrie stared at Loki's hand, now exposed. She pulled the cover back over it where it had slipped off, having been pulled by the tubing.

"Hey, Fancy Man."

Stephen looked at her out of the corner of his eyes.

"Don't hurt him." She stared at him with eyes as hard and unbending as the spirit Stephen knew she possessed. "And don't let anything hurt him."

It was a veiled warning and an unspoken blessing at the same time.

* * *

Stephen handed over the Staff of the Living Tribunal and the pouch containing Mordo's sling ring. "I trust you know what to do with these?"

"The Guardians of the Sanctums will convene to discuss matters concerning the reinstatement of the relics. The Staff and the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr will find a new home, and perhaps a new owner in the future." Wong said quietly. "We will also work together with the Masters at Kamar-Taj and see what we can do about restoring the lost powers and healing those who have relapsed."

He noted the worried look on Stephen's face. "Only a handful of us know of what really happened here, Strange."

Stephen nodded, his eyes heavy and downcast. "For all that's happened…he was one of us."

"I will oversee the funerary ceremonies myself. You do not need to worry." Wong hesitated. In the end he decided on a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Will you be alright, my friend?"

Stephen felt touched by the concern the usually taciturn Wong was demonstrating. The Sorcerer Supreme placed his own hand atop his friend's and tried to appear as reassuring as possible. "It is you I'm worried about, Wong. I should be with you, taking care of things. It is my responsibility."

Wong stared at him. "What you have done for me, I will never be able to repay."

Stephen drew back in sheer surprise. He had been the one to bring him back from the dead, but he was always careful to never let Wong know what had happened. It was never the right time to bring it up. Who could have told him? "Wong, I-"

"Thank you," Stephen whispered, mostly to himself. It was he who would never be able to repay Wong for all he had done.

Wong had saved Loki's life, and that of their unborn child after all.

"You are needed here, Strange." Wong lifted his jovial chin, gesturing toward behind him where New Asgard loomed in the distance. "Besides you're always a phone call and a portal away." As if on cue, a portal appeared behind him and Stephen caught a glimpse of a familiar alleyway, colourful and gay and bright – Kamar-Taj.

Wong's bellow resounded through the air as he stepped through, his ample behind barely fitting through the gateway, "But for God's sake, turn your roaming on!"

* * *

Bruce studied the observation charts on the mounted glass panel, flicking through the history going back the past few days. Seemingly satisfied, he slid his finger across the screen and closed it. "Vital signs have been looking good for the past twenty-four hours. No more dips in the blood pressure and the heart rate not as erratic. Foetal heart rate and movement chart is satisfactory too."

Stephen lifted one of Loki's hands and felt for the pulse, counting the steady beats against the pad of his fingers. Strong, he noted. He reached up and pulled Loki's lower eyelid downward gently. "Conjunctival pallor not as prominent as yesterday. Your recombinant erythropoietin is working wonders, Dr Banner."

Bruce beamed. He ran a sheepish hand through his hair. "I could have worked faster had I been back at Tony's lab but it didn't feel right to leave, not until Loki's fully stabilised."

"Oh, I think he's recovering faster than expected," Stephen could not help the excitement creeping into his voice as he watched the tracing of Loki's heart rhythm on the cardiac monitor for a few seconds.

"Well he is not exactly your average human. Not exactly your average superhuman either."

Stephen stole a curious glance. Banner shrugged, his eyes looking a bit guilty – "The Hulk near pulverised him and he was back on his feet hours later like it was nothing." Then Banner stiffened as if he had just thought of something, suddenly looking a lot guiltier. "Come to think of it he was probably wearing a glamour and made himself look pretty for the cameras."

Stephen placed Loki's hand back down carefully. "Nothing is ever as it seems with him, Dr Banner."

"I suppose not."

"So. Any plan on reversing the coma anytime soon?" Bruce walked over to the bed. "It has been three days and any longer we will have to think of parenteral nutrition. So far, his weight has not dropped but I'm not sure how long we can keep him sedated without feeding him."

Stephen gestured for Bruce to pull the curtain around him. He lifted Loki's gown slightly to expose the abdominal area and began his gentle palpation. "Abdomen is soft, fundal height has gone down from twenty weeks back to sixteen, I think I'm happy enough to taper down and wean him off sedation completely by this evening, depending on the response."

"Clinically he looks okay, but we can't really assess the pain score objectively so…if he starts appearing restless or his heart rate shoots up again, then we know he's not ready to come out of it yet."

Bruce nodded. "Sounds like a good plan." After a beat, "Boy am I glad it's you."

Stephen levelled him with a look somewhere between offended and cautiously flattered. "Thanks...I suppose?"

* * *

"Hey."

"Hi."

"How are you feeling?" Stephen's little finger traced Loki's hairline. He caught a stray wisp of raven hair between his fingers and swept it off Loki's high forehead, surreptitiously feeling for temperature. Loki felt warm, but comfortably so.

Loki's eyes were his usual piercing, clear sea-green and when he smiled, it was his trademark sly grin. "Better than you look. Has someone been keeping you up?"

"You have no idea." Stephen broke into a smile of relief of his own.

Loki's eyes wandered around, taking in his surroundings. As if only realising where he was, his face changed with the full return of recollection and his eyes widened.

"Hey, maybe you shouldn't-" Stephen started when he saw Loki struggle to raise his upper body to a sitting position before stopping himself short–

Loki gasped before gingerly easing himself onto his back once more, a hand pressed against the curve of his belly, "Ow, ow, _ow_ …"

"I think I've woken you up too soon," Stephen's forehead furrowed in concern.

"No!" Loki protested, now clasping both hands to his abdomen; raising his voice was _not_ a good idea. Stephen's frown deepened.

"Loki…"

"No, I do not wish to be put to sleep again." Loki breathed deeply, riding out the tail ends of pain, "I've slept enough, I really don't mind a bit of discomfort, if only to remind me that I am still alive."

"And yet you say you're not a masochist."

"Yes, well." Loki tried to muster a grin, "I thought I made that pretty clear the day we hooked up. Having to sit next to you was almost physically painful. And the awful, awful food, _yuck_."

"Was that why you bailed and left your double to sit through the worst of it?"

Loki smirked. "You mean to tell me you hadn't noticed right from the beginning?"

"I didn't mind carrying my half of a one-sided conversation. Made you look like the asshole for once. Well, a bigger one than you already were."

"Anthony Stark must have really disliked us."

"He liked me well enough. I only dissed his B&J's namesake ice cream flavour and traded the Time Stone for his life. You threw him out of his penthouse window." Loki only raised his eyebrows coolly.

Stephen waved an apologetic hand in a gesture of truce. "He also did imply I was only good for blowing up balloons at children's parties…"

"He did not?" Loki gasped in mock horror.

Stephen gazed at him thoughtfully. "Maybe he saw something there neither of us didn't at the time."

Loki's eyes shifted and landed on the hands Stephen had clasped on the bed covers as if offering a prayer. Stephen followed his gaze.

"I knew it was the real you when you started making fun of my hands."

"They were shaking so much the noises from your cutlery were distracting me from the book I was reading up in my room," Loki said softly.

"Oh my. We couldn't have that, could we?" Stephen's grey eyes narrowed slightly at the memory. "Although I did find the silencing spell you cast quite intrusive and insulting. Almost as insulting as your off-handed comment about my inability to heal my own hands."

"You should know by now I very seldom mean what I say and very often mean what I do not say, Strange." Loki turned his head to face the other way.

Stephen was silent. "I never did thank you for trying, though." He could remember the look of frustration on the trickster god's face when his attempt at undoing the irreversible damage to his nerves did not come to fruition.

"Don't flatter yourself, Strange. It was less out of the kindness of my heart and more of a shameless attempt at one-upmanship."

"An unexpected gesture of tenderness nonetheless. Quite unbefitting of a royal prince." Stephen laid a hand on Loki's blanket-clad thigh. "And quite possibly the moment I realised I needed to have you."

And Loki slowly turned his head to finally look at him again.

"I always mean what I say, Loki. At least I try to," Stephen said seriously.

Then his voice softened, "And I know damn well I meant it when I said I love you."

"It wasn't a…dream?" Loki murmured. "A hallucination my mind created to ease my passage unto death?"

"It didn't feel like a dream when I held your face like this and felt your tears." Half-rising from his chair, Stephen propped his elbows the bed and cradled both sides of Loki's face gently. "It didn't feel like a dream when you finally kissed me."

Loki's lips were soft and dry, but they yielded entirely upon meeting Stephen's yearning lips. When they parted, Loki did not immediately break his gaze, and searched Stephen's face instead.

"I don't mean to pry, but you look upset."

"I'm not upset, Loki." Stephen sighed. "Not really. Just slightly disappointed. Well. More than slightly disappointed, I mean, I'm really, really disappointed-"

Loki tried really hard not to roll his eyes; it would ruin the moment. "Which is it? What is it?"

Stephen bit the inside of his lip. He could feel the heat rise to his face.

"Well, ah…you see…I've restrained myself from waking you up before you're fully recovered because I was wanting to look you in the eyes and tell you I love you all over again, and now that I have, all I can think of is taking you right _here_ , right _now_." Stephen could feel the overpowering burn of lust roil in his gut, "But I can't and it's killing me."

Okay. Loki was definitely not expecting that.

"Surely we're not...abstaining…forever?" Loki fidgeted with the hem of the covers, valiantly trying to avoid Stephen's eyes but he felt himself wilt under the intensity of his gaze, and Loki's face burned. "I mean, yeah, right now I can't take a deep breath without feeling like a hot poker stabbing me in the stomach, but soon I'll be able to, surely?"

Stephen's crestfallen look was something to behold. "I can't risk it."

"I promise I'll be really, really still?"

Stephen laughed out loud and gave him a peck on the forehead. "That's really sweet of you, Loki, but no."

Loki groaned and flung an arm over his eyes. "You've got me really worked up and now you're hanging me out to dry."

"I'm sorry, Darling."

"Not as sorry as I." Loki's voice was muffled. "I knew carrying was going to be hard on me, but on you too?"

"Hey, we're in this together. Remember?"

Loki stilled. Still hiding his face, he nodded. "Yes. So why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?"

Stephen faltered.

Loki lifted his arm off his face and slowly turned his head to look at him expectantly. "I can tell when you're deflecting. There's something you are not telling me."

The internal conflict must have shown on Stephen's face, for Loki suddenly reached out his hand, but not quite touching. His voice was commanding but soft. "Tell me."

"Mordo is dead."

Loki visibly reared back, his thin lips slowly thinning even more until they were a tight, white line across his equally white face. He retrieved his hand and it shook slightly as it unconsciously clutched the covers to his chest.

"Did you try to bring him back? Like you did Wong?" He could not seem to process the information as calmly as he wanted.

Stephen stared, and snapped without meaning to. "How on _earth_ did you know that?"

"Mordo told me things," Loki said quietly, finally.

"What did he say to you?" Stephen's heart began to beat faster; he did not like the haunted look that had suddenly shadowed across Loki's eyes.

"Loki, what else did he say?"

"That our baby is _wrong_." The memory ripped itself from that dark corner in his mind like the uncoiling of a curse. Loki's chest hurt and he felt the child squirm as if feeling his pain. He closed his eyes; he did not want to look at Stephen's face, did not want to know the expression he must be wearing.

The room had gone ice-cold. But Stephen's voice was harsh and bitter and burning with anger.

"If our baby is wrong, then you and I are wrong." Loki felt Stephen grip his fingers hard, "And there isn't a _thing_ about us that feels wrong to me at all."

Loki's eyes filled with tears. He did not understand why he was feeling quite so upset, but he was. " 'The bill comes due.' Always."

"Then let it come." Stephen's grey eyes flashed fiercely. He was getting tired of hearing about the damn _bill_. "I am not letting you go." He cupped his other hand protectively over Loki's abdomen. "Either of you."

"Heavens," Loki murmured, voice thick with emotions. "You are just as bad as Thor."

"Well, I kinda know now where he's coming from. I _hated_ seeing you die." Stephen balled Loki's hand into a fist and pressed his forehead down onto the tight, white knuckles. "Once is enough, Loki."


	12. Chapter 12

He had had a craving for chanterelle mushrooms and despite the profuse offers from courtiers to procure them for him, Loki insisted on foraging them himself. Thor being Thor, did his best to talk him out of it and when talking his best failed (as was expected), Thor being Thor, ordered whomever else but the valiant Lady Brunnhilde to chaperone – Loki was too gleeful to feel insulted or argue.

They had been walking through the forest for nearly an hour when they stumbled onto the first bunch of wild mushrooms growing abundant and tantalisingly delicious under a big tree. Loki quickly dropped to his knees and gathered them all into his pack.

He climbed to his feet and was about to head for another batch of chanterelle mushrooms he had seen underneath another tree about ten feet away when he felt the first wave of dizziness strike.

"Lackey." Loki felt a supporting hand at his elbow and allowed himself to be led to sit on a fallen log.

"Head between your legs, now." Loki complied, blinking away the spots and fighting down the rolling waves of nausea. His mouth watered. He spat out and breathed in deeply.

"Thought you don't get these dizzy spells anymore." Valkyrie rummaged through her pack and produced a waterskin. She pressed it in his hand. "Drink this. You're overheated."

"No, I'm not. We're in the middle of a humid jungle." Loki took another couple of deep breaths. "I just haven't been wearing my stockings."

"Your...stockings?"

"They're special ones Strange got made for me. Supposed to keep my blood pressure stable when I'm on my feet too long or something."

"Well, where are they? And why haven't you worn them?"

Loki rolled his eyes and waved a hand in the general direction of his belly. "Look at the size of me. I can't exactly reach down anymore. Can barely see my feet."

"Then who's been putting them on for you all this while?"

Loki remained quiet.

It was Valkyrie's turn to roll her eyes. "Why didn't you just magic them on?"

Loki remained stubbornly quiet.

"You sentimental fool." Valkyrie sat down on the log next to him. She did not sound particularly angry, only resigned and more exasperated than irritated. "Fancy Man's been gone what a week? And what if you had fallen and broken your neck or something huh?"

Loki shrugged. "Already broke it once. Didn't hurt that much."

"Yeah, I'm sure it stopped hurting once you stopped breathing." Valkyrie dead-panned. "Give them to me."

"What? I'm not giving you the mushrooms, they're mine-"

"I'm not talking about the damn mushrooms, Highness. Give me the magic socks, I'm sure you've got them stored somewhere in one of your magic pockets."

Loki stared at her uncertainly.

"You have to wear them, right? So who's it going to be? Me or Thor? Or Banner?" She crossed her arms in defiance. "Cos we sure as hell won't let you walk another step until you do."

Valkyrie held out her palm expectantly. "Come _on_ we haven't got all day."

A few minutes later, Valkyrie was straining with the effort to put the compression stockings on. "This wasn't-" Loki's legs, once slender and thin, had grown so swollen from all the gallivanting he had done the super-tight contraption was not going on as smoothly as it used to. "-in the _bloody_ job description!"

"I need a raise."

* * *

"Hey, Bambi. Did you miss me?"

Loki groaned inwardly. He would recognise that voice anywhere. He should have known to disappear the moment he saw the gawdy helicopter land in the distance just before his scheduled meet-up with Banner.

"Stark. To what do I _possibly_ owe the pleasure."

"You pulled a Houdini on me and I got curious. I can't sleep when I'm curious so here I am."

Loki stared at him blankly. "What is this Houdini and what exactly did I pull?"

Bruce adjusted the tourniquet around Loki's upper arm that had slipped and sagged slightly. "Houdini was a magician back in the 1920s who was famous for his disappearing acts."

Loki rolled his eyes. "You humans glorify feats that I have learnt to do while I was still a babe in my toddler pants. Why am I not as famous as this Houdini?"

"Uh, ya kinda are…" Bruce pushed his spectacles further up his nose.

"And I haven't seen hide nor tail of my very good friend the great Doctor Stephen Strange in a while-" Tony lifted a finger, "He never did get back to me, and you know I like my progress reports, which meant that he had to still be in Asgard, and I got even curiouser."

Tony let his gaze wander over the length of Loki's body, lingering on the general area of his midsection like if he only stared hard enough, he would be able to see through the glamour what Loki clearly did not want him to see. "Never realised ensuring sustainable agriculture could be so…productive."

"Please take a walk on the grounds, Stark," Loki said pleasantly. "And do feel free to fall off a cliff."

"Aww. And to think I've brought with me some fantastic gift baskets for the baby shower – I _am_ invited I assume?"

"You told him?" Loki hissed furiously.

"I did need clearance to secure offshore remote access to his servers in New York where I kept your biometrics and anthropometric data - you try doing that from this Godforsaken place with practically non-existent wifi and cellular service and I am sorry I did not get your consent but you were pretty much bleeding to death at the time and not being particularly talkative."

Loki was still fuming. If Tony Stark knew, then it would mean it was only a matter of time before everyone and their uncle knew about it. Him. Them. His baby. Stephen's baby. Whatever.

"Be still, Loki. You'll dislodge the cannula."

"You are so lucky I am incapacitated right now, Stark, or I would-"

"You're getting soft, Lokes." In a flash, Loki grabbed a kidney dish from the trolley next to him and threw it with deadly accuracy at Tony's head.

 _"Oww!"_

"Loki, stop this!" Bruce glowered at him. "I was the one who called him. I needed his help with something. _We_ need his help."

"The only help I need is for someone to escort this man back to his stupid helicopter, away from my sight!"

"To think that I came all this way for you, Bambi," Tony pouted, rubbing his head ruefully.

"Strange is not here, Tony. He's back at his magic school in Kamar-Taj helping to clear up some post-apocalyptic mess of the magical kind. He's been gone two weeks now."

"That guy never picks up his phone." Tony leaned against the wall, his arms crossed across his chest. "The least you can do when you're in a long-distance relationship is to turn the damn roaming on." His eyes gleamed. "Is that what's got your knickers all in a twist, Lo-Lo? Missing your baby daddy?"

"Tony…" Bruce said warningly and made a slashing motion across his throat that could only mean _cut it the hell out._

"Oh, by the way, Stephen's already RSVP'ed to the wedding so…I'm guessing you're his plus one?" Tony's eyes lit up. "Or is it plus two now?"

Loki rose from the recliner chair much like a vampire rising from a coffin and ripped the cannula from his elbow sending blood spurting everywhere – "Hey!" Banner cried out.

"But I'm kinda glad you're not dead! I need you for some magic tricks for the wedding," Tony winked. "Nothing fancy, just something dramati - Oh _shit_!" He ducked to avoid the knife barely missing his head and lodging into the wall behind him.

"That was really unnecessary, Loki. Tony was only trying to help." Bruce wiped the last of the bloodstains from the dressing trolley with an antiseptic wipe. If Tony had not interrupted the session, he could have had at least two pints withdrawn today. Now he only had one and a half, and Loki was in no mental state to sit through another attempt at blood-letting from the look of him.

"Can't expect me to change just because I'm pregnant." Loki closed his eyes, his lips a stubborn pout. "It's biologically impossible."

"It's all just neurotransmitters, Loki. Your stress hormones, your sad hormones, your happy hormones, they're all out of whack." Bruce shook his head disapprovingly. "All this violence, you don't want it to rub off on the baby, do you?"

"Spare me the lecture, Banner. I'm not in the mood."

Suddenly exhausted from the outburst, Loki dropped his glamour. He stared at his belly. There was no hiding it any longer, at twenty-four weeks he wagered he was more than halfway through, if any of his past pregnancies hundreds of years ago were anything to go by.

An overwhelming sadness came over him out of blue and Loki leaned his head back and fought the urge to burst into tears. He tried to rouse his anger, at the fact that all he did now was cry and cry, but it was nowhere to be found.

Bruce watched him silently. Loki had never looked more miserable.

"You know if you really miss him, you can just call him."

"I can't." A single tear ran down his cheek.

Bruce pulled up a stool and sat down. "Why not?"

"I just can't." Loki wiped his cheek with the heel of his hand.

"And why not, Loki?" He asked again patiently.

"I can't distract him from his duties." Loki shook his head, and another tear fell onto his lap. "I can't get in the way."

Bruce inhaled deeply. "This is not good, Loki. Not good for you, and definitely not good for the baby. Antenatal depression's a real thing."

Then Bruce did something that probably surprised himself more than it did Loki. He laid a hand on Loki's blanket-covered shin and gave it a squeeze that was largely meant to be reassuring, but perhaps it was more his words than his touch that restored the slightest glimmer of hope back in Loki's heart.

"Right now, his biggest duty is to you, and the baby. If you're going through a rough time, I'm sure he would really want to know about it. _Call him."_

* * *

 _"Loki?"_ Stephen sounded surprised, his voice rough and thick. Loki felt a pang of guilt. Nepal was almost five hours ahead of Norway and it was already past midnight in Asgard. Stephen must have been asleep. He knew how tiring healing spells could be and Stephen had been working non-stop for the past fortnight helping Wong and the other Masters out at Kamar-Taj as more and more victims of Karl Mordo came out from hiding upon hearing the news of his death.

 _"I just…wanted to hear your voice."_

 _"Is everything alright?"_

 _"Yes." No._ Loki heaved a shuddery sigh. _"Yes, Stephen. Everything is alright."_

 _"Can't sleep?"_

 _"I'm fine."_

Stephen did not speak for a few seconds.

 _"You want me to sing you a lullaby or something?'_

 _"Don't be ridiculous." Yes._

Stephen chuckled softly.

 _"Good night, Stephen."_

 _"Good night, Loki."_

Loki sank his head deeper into his pillow and inhaled deeply. He never thought he would admit it to himself but at times like this, he missed New York just for the _noise_. It was too quiet here in Asgard and quiet was not good when all he had for company was his head and all the demons that lived in it.

He was fighting a losing battle, was again losing himself to melancholy.

The baby shifted inside him and his stomach lurched. "Just you and me, sweetheart."

It was going to be a long night.

All of a sudden, Loki felt a dip in the bed as if someone had gotten in next to him. In alarm, he shot up and would have scrambled off the bed had he not felt a hand wrap around his wrist - Loki's heart leapt to his throat.

He was about to shout, he knew the Valkyrie was just next door, but what if she had drunk herself into a stupor and bloody Hel he could not _believe_ this was happening again! The hand at his wrist moved as fast as lightning to knock the dagger out of his hand - "Hey! _Hey!_ It's just me!"

"Stephen?!" Loki screeched. "What the Hel are you doing here?"

"You called me, remember?" Stephen flicked the lights on with just a snap of his fingers. He sat up on the bed, brown hair still tousled from sleep, eyes bleary.

"Yes, to say goodnight!" Loki hissed.

Stephen said quietly, "You called for me."

He stood and walked over to the other side of the bed where Loki was still standing stock-still, arms wrapped around himself as if warding himself from the cold.

Stephen gathered his arms around Loki's waist and coaxingly pulled him in. "And I answered."

Loki's face crumbled. His hands dropping to his side, he buried his face into Stephen's chest.

As he breathed in the familiar, heady scent, Loki could feel the tension drain away and he allowed a shudder come to pass. His arms slowly rose to straddle Stephen's back and cling to his shoulders.

"You alright?" Loki could sense the poorly-concealed anxiety in Stephen's voice.

"Yes." Stephen heard Loki mumble into his shirt. The slight tremor Stephen was feeling through the palm of his hand was not his own.

"Loki, what is wrong? You're shaking."

"I'm fine." Loki lifted his face and tried to give Stephen a reassuring smile, only for it to falter seconds later, "Only I do not think I should be alone tonight."

He dropped his head again. His pride be damned. He was a _mess_.

Stephen nodded into the top of Loki's head, his chin sharp and coarse against the soft locks of Loki's hair. "I'm sorry, Loki."

 _"I shouldn't have left you alone. I shouldn't have been gone so long."_

"It's okay. You answered." At long last, when Loki showed his face again, it was lit with a smile, small still but much brighter than the one he wore previously.

Loki leaned forward for a kiss, for it was the only way Loki could think of to even begin to show Stephen how much he had missed him -

The next thing Stephen knew, he was lying on his back on the bed; Loki had slipped off his robes that now lay in a silken pile on the floor, and was now straddling Stephen's thighs, looking gloriously flushed with lust, his usually pale skin glowing, glossy dark hair tumbling past delectable collarbones and tickling Stephen's chest and Stephen could not help but moan. "Loki…"

Loki slowly eased himself down, whispering a word Stephen could not catch but for all its mystery it mattered naught, it could only have been a spell, to render its caster's body so pliable, so warm, so heavy yet not crushingly so – Stephen groaned in pleasure; Loki in reality should be but a dense solid mass of muscle he should not be able to withstand, yet the Loki in his arms now was as light and as heavy a lover could and should be…every inch of him beautiful, every inch of him perfection.

Every inch of Loki fitting Stephen just right.

As they lay together chest to chest, thigh to thigh in the darkness, Stephen barely felt the cold, only the warmth of Loki's breath against the hollow of his throat as Loki trailed his lips along his neck, the tingling in his spine thrumming with every delicious stroke of Loki's rounded belly pressing against his member. "Loki."

Stephen's hand ran up the smooth side of Loki's thigh, the sharp jut of his hipbone, the exquisite dip where his long waist still curved inward, before it trailed down to gently caress the soft swell of Loki's belly. "Are you…is this really –" Stephen sucked in a breath as Loki's sharp teeth nicked his skin, "-okay?"

"Stephen," Loki murmured. "Please." His green eyes glinted in the dark. _Shut up._

"As you command, my Prince," Stephen acquiesced sotto voce. He grabbed the back of Loki's head and pulled him in for a deep, crushing kiss. He missed him too.

* * *

They made love deep into the night, the notion of sleep a distant memory. Stephen explored every inch of Loki's body, embracing all the ways his lithe, lean body had changed in preparation for childbearing, and he spent many minutes kissing all the curves and edges, every one of them vaguely familiar yet different. All Loki.

They had long since lost count but as they lay now spent, faces turned to each other, Stephen traced his thumb along the angular line of Loki's chin.

"You are the most exquisite thing I have ever seen," he murmured.

Loki's face, pale as moonlight, shone brighter still with pleasure. "I know."

He reached up to cup Stephen's cheek in turn. The delicious tingling between his thighs burned yet he was aching for more.

"Are you tired?"

Stephen laughed, clearly exhausted. "You are insatiable, Loki."

"I fear, Stephen." Loki sighed, closing his eyes. "I fear the moment I stop that it will be taken away from me."

"Don't say such things." Stephen's hand released his face only to grab around Loki's waist and pull him into as tight an embrace but one still mindful of the baby. "Enjoy the here and now. Enjoy us. Enjoy _this_." His other hand found its way atop Loki's belly.

"I think we've thrown him off his sleep cycle," Stephen marvelled. "Was that a kick?"

"Yes," Loki murmured. "I think he enjoyed all the merry tumbles and cartwheels we had him doing."

Stephen laughed again.

* * *

"I am taking the longest bath in the history of New Asgard."

Loki stretched and sat up, swinging his long legs down his side of the bed. Stephen watched as Loki grabbed his sticky, sweat-soaked hair and bunched it up into a messy ponytail, leaving a few stray strands stubbornly stuck to the back of his long neck from the perspiration.

"Who took the longest bath in the history of old Asgard?"

Loki threw him a look over the shoulder and smirked. "Me."

"God, it's too early for a shower." Stephen turned onto his side and grabbed Loki's pillow, hugging it to his chest. "Wake me up when you're done. I have a feeling when you come out from the bath, it'll be in time for breakfast and I am _famished_."

Stephen felt under the covers for another pillow to straddle between his thighs and he froze.

He propelled himself up to a sitting position and drew the covers back entirely off the bed with one sweep of his arm.

" _Fuck_. Loki!"

"What?" Loki who was just about to turn the doorknob to the en-suite bathroom turned around to look. His heart skipped a beat, before it began to pound in his chest, picking up pace. "Oh dear."

Stephen jumped out of the bed, leaping over the large pool of blood staining the mattress bright red against the stark white of the sheets, his face drained of all colour. He reached for Loki's hand, whose fingers had gone ice-cold with fear.

"Oh dear, oh dear," he heard Loki murmur over and over and Stephen held a steadying hand on his waist as Loki bent over to look between his legs, and sure enough, blood was trailing down his thighs in thin rivulets, staining his pristine white robe and pooling at his bare white feet.


	13. Chapter 13

"But I feel fine," Loki murmured. He looked around the room at the faces all wearing different degrees of disbelief. "Really. I do."

"Uh-uh." Thor easily appeared the most stricken, as he took in the sight of his brother sitting calmly in a pool of his own blood. Loki's bath robe was completely soaked through by now and it made a squelching sound as he helped hoist Loki off the wheelchair and onto the examining table.

"Coming through, coming through!" No longer groggy at having been wakened from sleep, Bruce wheeled out what appeared to be a machine of some sort, sleek and streamlined with LCD panels and probe-like devices of various sizes and shapes lined in a row.

Stephen's eyes immediately brightened. "Oh, thank God."

"Yes, yes, you should deify me, I am Bruce Banner, the God of Good Timing," the physicist offered a tight smile. He blinked owlishly. "I'm starting to believe this is all some kind of divine intervention. Somebody up there must either hate you or love you very much, Loki."

"You don't know?" Loki asked stonily. "I'm cursed."

That earned him a whapping on the head. " _Ow_! Thor, what the Hel?"

"Then do not talk like that!"

"Where did you get that?" Stephen murmured, his hands working to wrap the blood pressure cuff around Loki's upper arm, yet his eyes were admiring the ultrasound machine. "That is top-of-the-line model."

"You know Tony. Only the best for him, and only the best for his friends."

Stephen lifted his eyebrows. "I must thank him."

"Indeed you must." Bruce gave Loki a pointed look. "And _you_ should apologise for throwing a knife at his head."

"I would die first before I would do any such thing." Then, " _Ow_!" Loki reared his head. "Thor, I swear, if you hit me _one_ more time…"

"Loki, shut up." Stephen palmed Loki's shoulder and forced him to lie back. As reassuring as it was that Loki was conscious and talking and not in excruciating pain, the amount of blood he had lost was worrying. Their room looked like a murder scene. The only consolation was having Thor around to manhandle his brother into the wheelchair; short of manacling him, Stephen would not have been able to stop Loki from walking his way to the infirmary as he had so insisted at first.

Clearly, Loki was in a state of denial.

Stephen watched Loki wave a hand to magic the bloody mess away for the third time and just as quickly, fresh red blood bloomed again on the sheet he was propped on. "Loki, save your magic. You'll tire yourself out."

Loki swallowed hard. "But there is nothing wrong with me. I feel _fine_." He concentrated as he felt for something within him, "And the baby's fine too." In fact, his unborn son had not stopped moving at all since the bleeding started, like he was restless too. Surely that was a good sign, right?

Thor clapped a hand on his brother's shoulder. "I'm sure he is, Brother. But just let the doctors take a look at you first, alright?"

A sudden gush of wetness seeped from underneath him, and instantly his thighs felt slick and sticky. Loki whimpered softly but said nothing further. He leaned his head back in resignation as Bruce inserted an intravenous line into his arm. He had half a mind to tell Bruce to just leave the damn thing in. It would save everyone the effort the next time his traitorous body decided to bleed like a leaky pipe; it seemed like the trendy thing to do nowadays.

"Brother, shall I leave?" Thor asked, heavy reluctance evident in his voice as Stephen reached to loosen the tie around Loki's robes in preparation to examine him. Loki's hand was fast to grab onto his brother's. _No_.

Thor worried at the clammy frigidness of his brother's fingers and he knew; Loki was terrified. "Comfort, Brother."

"It's too early, Thor," Loki whispered. "It's still too early,"

"Hush now, Loki." Thor unconsciously rubbed his palms over Loki's cold fingers as if trying to suffuse some warmth into them.

"Estimated blood loss so far, Strange?" Bruce murmured, hanging up a bag of saline.

Stephen thought of the bloodied robe, the sheets and the puddles on the floor and dripping off the wheelchair. "At least 600 cc," he said quietly, not wanting to raise any alarm. That was already approximately one-tenth of Loki's blood volume and if he continued to bleed heavily, there was going to be trouble. Loki was starting to look very pale now from blood loss or nerves, most likely both. Without saying a word, Bruce quickly substituted a bag of Loki's own blood for the saline.

"Any pain anywhere?" Stephen inquired, feeling Loki's belly gently. The prince shook his head numbly. Satisfied with the absence of contractions or other abnormal findings, Stephen whispered a generic Healing Spell under his breath in the hopes that his sentient magic could reach out and halt the progression of whatever disease or illness that was causing the latest in a long string of complications; to say it had not been an easy pregnancy would be a gross understatement.

Loki squirmed, wincing in pain as he felt the magic burn through the layers of his skin and mingle with his own seiðr, as incompatible as oil and water. But despite the initial discomfort, he was soon soothed by the sudden cessation of the gushing sensation he had been intermittently experiencing from down below. At the very least he would no longer be assaulted by the nauseating smell of his own blood.

His relief was short-lived and his eyes narrowed suspiciously when Stephen reached for the ultrasound probe and squirted some kind of gel onto the transducer. "What are you doing?"

"It's a scan machine, Loki. We mortals use it to look into people's bodies because we can't exactly see through flesh –" Stephen's eyes softened, "- and because it gives us nice pictures."

Seeing his unborn son for the second time was no less thrilling than the first, and the sudden hush that had befallen the room was one filled with wondrous marvel, if Loki's little gasp of surprise was of any indication. Stephen could not help but smile despite his worry.

"He's a good-looking one. I can tell. He's got my cheekbones," He quipped.

Loki could not speak. He could only nod, and as he blinked furiously against the sudden assault of dust, he turned his gaze away from the screen. At the sight of the unspoken question, Stephen said reassuringly, "Our little one's doing just fine, Loki."

It was a long while before Loki finally gave in, his form physically relaxing as the tension left his body. "Good," he breathed out finally. "Good."

"And the bleeding? Any idea what's causing it?" Bruce asked quietly and a sombre mood fell over the room once more.

Stephen nodded reluctantly. "It's just as I thought. See there?" He pointed his finger at a dense collection of placental tissue at the very base of the womb. "That's the cervical os, or the opening to the inside of the uterus. In labor, that's the part that dilates and opens until it is big enough to let the baby through."

"The afterbirth is too closely encroached onto the margin, it's covering almost half of it." Stephen sighed. "The Latin name for it is placenta praevia but trust me, the name may sound pretty, but that's about the only pretty thing about it."

"So, it's nasty huh." Bruce guessed.

"Pretty nasty." Stephen sighed again, looking very glum. _Oh boy._

"I am right here." Loki was as white as the sheet he was lying on, despite the bleeding that had largely stopped. He did not particularly like the expression Stephen was wearing on his face, like he knew something…

The very face that said it was something important enough to not tell Loki about. "Kindly explain to me what the Hel is going on before I lose it and stab somebody."

"Ninety-percent of the time, the placenta moves upward as the womb grows larger with time. However, in your case, the placenta is located so down low that as the womb stretches it sort of pulls on the placenta, causing it to bleed - the placenta is essentially your baby's only source of oxygen and food, so it is very heavily vascularised. There may not be pain, but you can actually bleed to death from it."

"W-Why- Wha-" Loki frowned, momentarily at a loss for words. "Was it something I did?"

Stephen carefully thought over his answer. "Technically, no and yes. You…have never had this sort of thing happen in your previous -?" Loki shook his head, none of his previous pregnancies had ever come close to being this eventful, not that he could remember anyway, it had been centuries.

When Stephen hesitated again, Loki decided he had had enough. "For Norns' sake, just spit it out, Strange!"

"Two months ago when you nearly died from internal bleeding, one of the healing methods we used to stop the haemorrhage was to reattach a segment of the placenta that had detached from the trauma of your fall, back onto the uterine wall and fuse it together."

It was a distant memory for Loki as he had been unconscious for the most part of it, but Stephen did explain to him in brief what had happened.

"The binding spell was successful in arresting the bleeding…" Stephen halted. "But I'm afraid as a consequence, it might also have stopped the natural progression of the placenta from moving upwards, away from the opening of the cervix."

"Alright. And?" Loki pressed.

"Usually it doesn't cause much of a problem aside from the occasional bleeding every once in a while, but we have to monitor you very closely from now on, because there is always the danger of recurrence of the massive bleeding as we have witnessed tonight - and if you end up losing too much…well."

The dire implication remained unspoken but clearly understood; there was no mistaking the look of frustration on Loki's face.

"And?" Loki growled impatiently, ever and always the perspicacious pain in Stephen's ass. "You are not finished, Strange."

"You will have to be on bed rest for the next couple of days. No walking, no jumping, no climbing, no horseback riding, no flying, no nothing. Except for toileting. And even that I would suggest using the…ah…bedpa-" Stephen's voice trailed. The fury was coming off Loki in waves. "In simple terms, nothing more vigorous than blinking."

"I suppose breathing is allowed?" Loki asked sweetly.

"Got it. No more vigorous activities." Thor placed a warning hand on Loki's shoulder. Loki shrugged it off. "I told you foraging was a bad idea, Loki." Thor growled, his face growing dark.

"That was _ages_ ago, Thor," Loki snapped. "Oh, and thank you _so_ much for revoking my privileges, it is bad enough that I can no longer leave the grounds whenever I please, I now have the Valkyrie shadowing my every move –"

"If she hadn't you would be lying in a ditch somewhere, perhaps dead and unfound still, and over what?" Thor threw his hands up in frustration, _"Mushrooms_?"

Stephen straightened like he had been doused with icy water. This was news to him.

"They were golden chanterelles and they were in season and I _wanted_ them!"

"Yes, and what Loki wants Loki always gets! No matter the cost!" Thor slammed a hand down on the trolley table, sending various surgical equipment supplies flying everywhere. "Well, not anymore!"

"Guys, guys, calm down –" Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose.

Loki was livid. Seiðr began to roll off him in waves and Stephen knew if he did not step in, someone was going to get very hurt.

"It wasn't Loki's fault, Thor," Stephen interjected. "It was mine."

"Stephen, stop it," Loki said quietly.

"Loki hasn't done anything."

"Well?" Thor crossed his gigantic arms across his generous chest. "What was it that he has supposedly not done?"

"Thor, if you speak one more word –" Loki hissed. "I will leave Asgard tonight and I will never come back and you will never see me again, I _swear_ it."

Thor reared back as if slapped.

"And _you_." Loki's green eyes locked onto Stephen like a bullseye – "I will not have my private bedroom matters be discussed in the open like it is a matter of public interest!"

Before anyone could stop him, Loki ripped the cannula out of his arm, gathered the robe around his middle, slid off the bed, nearly slipping on a puddle of his own blood - "I will not have it!" - and strode out of the infirmary in a blur of white, red and black.

Thor's hands slowly dropped to his side, stunned.

"Vigorous activities," Bruce murmured. He sighed. And pulled off his spectacles, once again splattered with blood. "I suppose you also meant… _lovemaking_?"

Stephen palmed a hand over his eyes. What a bloody disaster. Literally.

It took Thor a second too late to fully understand. When he finally did, all at once he appeared lost, and longanimous in the face of what could only be centuries of long-suffering for the sake of his brother.

"Ah."

* * *

"Did you draw the short straw, Dr. Banner?" Loki's voice should have drifted off in the wind, but it was as crisp as the morning air, and twice as sharp. "Come you here to appease the beast? An offering of some sort?"

The beast appeasing the beast. How very proper.

Bruce shrugged. "There is only me to draw anything, really. Your brother and the good Doctor are currently engaged in a rather deep conversation I do not wish to be a part of."

The dawn was breaking and the skyline was beautiful. It did not take long for Bruce to figure out where Loki was. There were not many places that could rival the cliff; it was a place of love, of heartbreak and goodbyes.

Bruce sat down next to him on the rocks, not too closely but not too far away either.

Loki closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. "I fear I am not in the right mind to be around anybody at the moment, Bruce."

"You are not in the right mind to not be with someone at the moment, Loki."

Loki's face was drawn and pale but his eyes were rimmed with red.

"Am I cursed?"

"If having people love you so much that they are willing to incur your wrath in order to protect you is a curse, then yes, you are cursed."

Bruce leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "Doubly cursed, I think, in your case."

"Love is a fleeting, fragile thing. Hardly won, easily lost."

Loki's voice sounded too much like a strangled sob. Bruce turned his head in alarm.

"Do you know what it took to make Thor love me, Bruce?"

Bruce shook his head slowly, horrified. "No, Loki…"

"I feel like the entire universe is _colluding_ against me-" Loki's eyes filled with tears, hard and fast and _hot_ ; there was no stopping them – "making me g-go through it all over again."

"Do I really have to die again before the Norns see me fit and deserving of Stephen's love? Of our child?" Loki cupped both hands over his face, his thin frame wracked with silent sobs. "How many times this time?"

"Loki." Bruce reached out a hand, not nearly touching –

"Loki. Do not be alarmed. But I am going to need to hug you."

Loki did not answer. Bruce could see the tears seep through his long, pale fingers.

"You need to let me hug you. Now. Alright?"

Loki nodded once slowly. Then he nodded again, vigorously this time, _frantically_.

And for the first time ever since their involuntary falling into reluctant friendship, Bruce Banner pulled Loki in and hugged him gently at first, then tightly as Loki wept and wept –

"Can I not just be _happy_?"

And for the first time, Bruce did not try to come up with an answer at all, for it was highly unlikely it was one Loki could accept, so distraught was he – so Bruce just stayed quiet and held him tighter, hoping against hope it was enough for now to pull Loki back from the edge.

* * *

"I've given him something to help him sleep." The sleeping draught had worked wonders, the Healers of Asgard's expertise in botany was unrivaled; no sooner had Loki's head hit the pillow than he drifted off into a gentle, deep slumber. "He needs his rest, after all."

"Thank you, Bruce." Thor said grimly.

Stephen was leaning against the wall a few feet away, studiously studying the ground. "We need to put him on a pad chart, watch out for further bleeding-"

"Done that. I've let the Healers know the Prince will be resting in his own chamber and that he will allow them entry on a four-hourly basis so they could chart the necessary observations. I have also installed an alarm right next to his bed in cases of emergency should he be incapacitated, and that we be alerted immediately."

"Is he alright?" Stephen finally lifted his head, his grey eyes solemn and largely unreadable save for the unmistakable glimmer of anxiety.

"I…would be cautious around him for now." Bruce hesitated. "He is not doing all too great, you know, inside."

"I should like to see him and apologise," Thor looked at Loki's closed doors longingly.

"Far be it from me to tell you what you can and cannot do, Thor, or Stephen too really, but I strongly advise you be close but not…pushy. For now." Bruce sighed, still more than a little worried. "Be gentle with him, both of you."

At their crestfallen looks, Bruce decided to take pity on his friends. "Look. He loves you both, that much I can tell. And you love him. We all do, in our own way."

He raked a hand through his hair, "But we need to help convince him of that, because behind all that talk and swagger?" Bruce waved a hand at the closed doors, "He is still so lost in self-hate he doesn't believe he deserves any of it."


	14. Chapter 14

"Ah, look who's decided to show up! The good Doctor himself," Stark tipped his shot glass in a mock salute. "Making house calls now?"

"No need to act surprised, Stark. I'm sure your AI housekeeper's announced me." Stephen glided into Tony's living room. He looked pointedly at the glass filled with amber liquid in Tony's hand, looked pointedly at the clock on the wall, and shook his head in resignation. "Eight glasses of water I believe is the key to long life, Stark. Water."

"And that is what I'm drinking," Tony mumbled, before downing whatever heavy liquor he was drinking in one go. "Want one?"

"No."

"Suit yourself." Tony poured himself another one, this time from a different bottle from his whisky cabinet.

Stephen inhaled, feeling his breath fill his chest – No. He did not come here to nag. "I have come to thank you. Your ultrasound machine could not have come at a more opportune time."

"Bruce told you I was asking for you?" Tony tsk-tsked. "But seriously, man. No one knows where you are nowadays."

Stephen hesitated, unsure of how much Stark actually knew about Mordo despite the fact that the Avengers had been the first on the scene on the day of the attack on Loki in Greenwich Village. "I have been preoccupied this past month, yes."

"But I…will most likely be spending most of my time in Asgard from now on." A tiniest pause, yet there was no mistaking the subtlest hint of desperation. "Loki is in a delicate situation."

Tony's hand stilled from swirling his drink. After a beat, "Are we expecting complications?"

Strange conjured himself an armchair. Why he would need to do that when Tony had enough furniture to fill a warehouse was beyond him.

Tony watched as the sorcerer sat himself down, careful to look anywhere but him. When Strange spoke, to an untrained ear it would have sounded casual, but to Tony, it was anything but. "Come now, Stark. Why the sudden compassion for your ex-arch enemy?"

Tony Stark smiled in a way that told Stephen he knew exactly what Stephen was doing. _You testing me? Two can play this game, buddy._

"Oh, not compassion per se, no. But he is Thor's brother and by extension, I _kinda_ have to care. Just a little bit." Stark smirked. "But I can see you care a helluva lot."

Strange's countenance was one of antsy impatience that Tony recognised so well as shrouded anxiety, that he was beginning to get more than a little worried himself.

"What is going on?"

Stephen's grey eyes dropped to his lap. "We…have detected a serious problem that will not allow Loki to deliver normally. Not without endangering his life and the baby."

Tony's brown eyes were unblinking. "Are we talking medical-chopper-on-standby serious, or we-need-to-operate-now-or-we-lose-them-both serious?"

"The latter."

"Shit." Tony scratched his stubble, his eyes narrowing. He did not know what to think about this new development. He needed more information to process his thoughts and decide on what to feel.

"And I take it New Asgard does not have the expertise to handle such a difficult delivery?"

"The best of their Healers perished on Asgard and the technology died with them." A shadow veiled over Stephen's eyes. "In his condition, Loki can go into labor at any time and I am not confident in my abilities to handle premature babies, let alone when it is my own."

"And you do not trust the hospitals in Norway."

"Would you?"

"Hell no." Stark tapped his fingers restlessly on the kitchen island. "Loki might have wiped the slate clean after Thanos, but Loki pregnant? Too delicious to pass up. The scientists would have a field day, you won't even get past the front door. SHIELD has connections everywhere."

"Even yours?"

"Stark Medical has some of the best obstetricians and paediatricians in the country. But I wouldn't go so far as claiming to know with absolute certainty where their loyalty lies."

At his words, Tony could see what faint glimmer of hope Stephen had in his eyes die.

Stephen closed his eyes and leaned his head back. When he did that, the dark circles under his eyes became more prominent. "What are my options?"

Stark frowned, tapping his index finger to his lips, as if deep in thought.

"We could get Loki to come back here."

"Here, as in New York?"

"Here, as in back at the Tower, specifically. He has his own floor, you know," Tony said, making a slight face. "We can keep an eye on him, and you're practically just down the street. Easier commuting too, although with your portal thingy, Manhattan to Norway is hardly any commuting at all, but you know what I mean."

Tony took a deep breath. Yep, he was really doing it.

"And when the time comes, we can either do it here, I can get my medical team in, and we will make sure the baby is delivered under heavy guard –" Tony pursed his lips, "I wonder how long it will take to install an operating theatre and a proper neonatal care unit, I'm gonna have to ask Pepper to find out."

"You would do that. For me?" Stephen's eyebrows furrowed.

Tony regarded him in wonder. "You don't have many friends, do you?"

Stephen resisted the crazy urge to physically count with his fingers the number of actual friends he had, so taken aback was he by the atypically insensitive question. He decided to say nothing lest he say something stupid like, _'Yes, Stark I do have a friend, and I'm sitting here in front of him right now and I need help. I won't admit it out loud, but I do._ '

"You are forgetting one thing. King Thor will not like the idea of his brother being so far away. He's…become quite protective of him."

Tony rolled his eyes. "More protective than usual? Didn't know that was even possible. Seriously Strange, couldn't you have ensnared someone else? Someone who doesn't happen to have such a crazy older brother who goes batshit the moment someone even looks at his kid brother the wrong way?"

"Then you shouldn't have sat us so close together in the first place," Stephen said coolly. "You have your-" he waved a careless hand, "pheromones. Now _magic_ …Magic is something much more extraordinary, something you cannot fathom with your mind, no matter how brilliant you are."

"Uh-uh." Tony snorted. "Why don't we just call a spade a spade and get you to admit you wanted to screw each other silly the moment you met? Magic, my ass."

"I'm afraid the moment we met wasn't quite as romantic as you imagined." Stephen's eyes softened at the memory. "I threw him into a time loop and he pulled his daggers on me."

"Well. Love at first sight is a bullshit concept, to me anyway." Tony shrugged. "Whatever rocks your boat, man. I'm happy for you. If I may say so, of course." An exaggerated hand on the chest.

"Of course you may, Stark." Stephen finally relented and broke into a very small smile.

"But back to our predicament which I hereby dub 'The Thor Problem.' I have an idea, which may sound crazy, but hear me out." Tony raised his glass and extended his index finger. "We are all about protecting Loki's privacy, am I right? What if instead of bringing Loki to hospital, we bring the hospital to Loki? You're a surgeon, you got any doctor friends you can trust?"

As if on reflex, Stephen looked down at his hands. A sick realisation dawned on him. He would give anything to have the use of his hands one more time, for one last time, if only to perform the surgery and deliver his son himself. He did not know if he was capable of trusting anyone else to do it –

"Yes." He abruptly straightened. "Yes, I do."

Tony looked at him strangely.

"So it's settled then. You can present this to His Majesty the King and His Highness the Prince, your _lover_ , and see which option Loki likes best."

Stephen understood the meaning behind Tony's words. It mattered not what Thor liked or disliked; the final decision was in Loki's hand, and Stephen would be behind it one hundred percent.

"But to build an operating theatre in Asgard, Stark? And it's not just that, is it, we're talking about an actual Surgical and Neonatal Unit, the logistics of it all would be mind-boggling– "

"Don't you worry your pretty little head, my dear," Tony said nonchalantly. "You just leave everything to me and don't worry about a thing."

Tony threw himself backward onto his gigantic couch and propped his feet on the coffee table. "Besides. You and Loki aren't really going to settle down after just one baby, are you?" He threw him a smirk. "I'm a man of the future, Strange. I think of everybody's future."

Stephen had to stop for a while. He was going to be a father.

He was going to have a family. An actual family.

It was a thrilling, yet terrifying thought.

"Believe me, being an only kid sucks. Trust me," Tony drawled on.

Stephen did not know what to say. He settled for the one thing that sounded absolutely right. "Thank you, Stark. I owe you."

"I don't say this often and I definitely don't say it to just anybody…but you don't owe me anything, Doctor." Tony crossed his legs, opened a newspaper and pretended to read it. "You never will."

Stephen stared at him, uncertain of the appropriate emotion to associate his supposed response with.

Tony looked up from the top of the newspapers but only for a brief moment, hardly meeting his eyes. "Ask and it is yours."

Stephen nodded. He turned to leave, his heart suddenly ten times lighter. He knew Tony had caught his smile because the billionaire was now wearing one too.

 _Who even reads newspapers anymore?_ Stephen shrugged inwardly. What a weirdo.

* * *

Thor had been standing in front of his room for a full five minutes.

Loki felt his eyebrows quiver in exasperation. What a distracting presence; even when Thor was not in front of him, the thrum of energy reverberated through the walls and being as sensitive as Loki was to seiðr and all manners of elemental energies, it was ruining his concentration. Loki laid his tome to the side with an irritated sigh.

 _Just knock, you fool._

Not only did he not knock, Thor began to pace back and forth.

 _Oh for Norns' sake –_

Loki flung the doors open with a burst of his seiðr.

Caught off-guard, Thor stopped in his tracks and stared at him like a deer trapped in the headlights.

"You can speak now, Thor." Loki assented coolly, lifting his ultimatum.

Thor's face brightened immediately. "I, ah…"

"What do you want, Thor?" Loki asked patiently, tone not unfriendly yet not friendly either.

"Could I interest you in a stroll, Brother?"

Loki stared at the wheelchair with a look of pure disdain. He stuck out his chin and directed his gaze upward at Thor, who was looking at him with such hopeful anticipation that Loki was finding it more difficult than usual to upkeep his haughty demeanour.

Pride warred with pity but alas, the soft spot he had for the blonde buffoon, (not to mention sheer boredom) won out and Loki nodded silently.

Thor, ever the golden labrador incarnate, beamed so brightly Loki wondered if he had accidentally agreed to more than a short jaunt on the grounds. "I said yes to a walk, Thor. Not a marriage proposal."

"I am no less pleased, Brother."

Exaggeratingly Loki made to rise from the bed, but Thor was quick to wave him down. He pushed the wheelchair past the threshold and triumphantly parked it next to the bed before looking at Loki expectantly.

"Must I, Thor?"

"Doctor's orders, Loki." Thor at least had the decency to look apologetic. "It may have escaped your attention, but your Doctor Strange has established quite a formidable presence...now he may not be here at the current moment but I'm afraid his order still stands."

Then the King of Asgard went and begged pity with his eyes. "Please do not get me into trouble, Loki."

"Fine." Loki rolled his eyes. "But if this gets out in public, if I even so much as see the back of my head on your stupid Facebook -"

"Your reputation is safe, Loki."

Loki tried not to think about the sheer humiliation of being carted around like a sow, concentrating only on the warmth of the sun on his skin, the unearthly delicious smell of the earth, and the fresh scent of the morning air.

He tried not to think of Stephen who had left this morning without saying goodbye he knew not where-

Or maybe Stephen did. Perhaps Loki had just not been awake enough for it. His head still felt a little foggy.

But no matter. Loki was used to being left behind. What was one more person abandoning him in the grand scale of lost and abandoned things.

So lost Loki was in his melancholic reverie that he did not realise where Thor had pushed him until he found himself facing the very horizon he shared with Bruce Banner just the day before. His throat closed up and Loki visibly reared back at the sight with a sudden hiss.

"I will never tire of this." Thor murmured, seemingly unaware of his brother's discomfort. He could not have seen the look on Loki's face; he was still towering over from behind him. It was only when Thor locked the wheelchair and walked around the front of it that he saw –

"You look upset, Loki." Thor knelt in front of him. "Should I not have brought us here?"

Loki did not speak.

"Loki?" Thor tried again, searching his face anxiously

"Memories." Loki had a shaky palm pressed to one cheek, head turned downward as if fascinated by something on the ground, his green eyes wide and blank. "I am merely listening to memories, Brother."

Yesterday, so devastated had he been by what one night, only one night with Stephen had cost, so distraught was he with the truly exorbitant price of that one brief moment of bliss, that in his grief, he did not remember the significance of this place.

This was the very place Stephen first told him he loved him, was it not?

And this was also the place where-

"I heard her," Loki whispered, sounding almost like he was about to be sick.

"What? Who?" Thor got off his knees and sat next to him on the rocks, his hand on Loki's knee.

"I heard her calling me." Loki lifted his face. "Mother."

"Do you mean...you heard her when she was calling for Father?"

Loki shook his head slowly, his eyes empty, staring at nothing and everything, seeing everything but understanding nothing –

"She called for me. That night."

Thor's hand twitched, his fingers curling unconsciously around the soft woollen blanket. "That night…"

The light flickered out of his eyes like a candle snuffed in the gale of winter. "The night you nearly left me…again."

"Yes," Loki said softly. "I thought it a dream...but it was not."

His face paled at the memory, his black hair lifting slightly off his shoulders in the breeze.

"I saw you on the floor, weeping over my body. I wanted to shake you, hit you even, for daring to debase yourself in such manner." Loki gazed at him out the corner of one eye. "Crying for the likes of me."

In a sudden grip of paralysis, Thor could only stare at him, mouth slightly apart, lips working furiously to form words that never came -

"That was when I heard her. And I found myself. Here."

"Fault me if you will, brother, my selfishness dictates my stand on this matter. I am glad you did not go to Mother despite her calling you to join her in Valhalla."

"On the contrary, Thor. She did no such thing."

Thor could swear he saw Loki's eyes darken with emotions he did not dare name.

"She told me not to come. That it was not my time."

Loki barked a harsh laugh, hollow though it was, yet the depth of anguish in it was unfathomable; as unfathomable as the agony in his eyes. "So close to death and still Mother would not accept me. I would have been slighted, had I not remembered my own callous last words to her."

Thor bowed and buried his head in his hands. He squeezed his eyes against the tears that threatened to shatter his composure.

"Only you would miscontrue Mother's desire to see you remain alive as denial of her love for you."

"She took to her death thinking I had denied her, Thor. I doubt there is a cause for greater pain in a mother's heart."

"She is in Valhalla, Loki!" Thor said fiercely, finally lifting his head. His eyes glistened. "She knows now what is truly in our hearts! In _your_ heart! And in mine!"

"You are still alive, Loki." There was no stopping the tears. "Can't you see?"

Loki sank back against his seat, stunned.

"See _me,_ " Thor could not comprehend this grief. "See us."

"Thor. Thor, Thor." Loki raised a pale hand to his forehead, feeling for a fever he was sure was burning there. He felt so _hot_.

His hand fell away when he found none. It was just him, and all his emotions roiling and boiling to the surface.

"Oh, sweet Thor."

Trust Thor in his simplicity to shed light on the one thing that was so blatantly obvious Loki and his fantastic mind had failed to see; his heart so blinded and blackened and burdened by the carrying of so much hate he could not remember why he had spent all those centuries hating Thor, or why he had wanted to die in the first place.

"You never cease to surprise me."

If he had only looked into Thor's face as he dangled over the Void instead of Odin's…had he only seen the pure terror and unspeakable horror – the grief - in Thor's eyes before Loki decided to release his precious hold on Gungnir –

How different their lives would have been.

 _Would have, could have, Loki._

 _Yes, Stephen. To rewrite time would mean I would have never met you._

Loki's hand unconsciously strayed to his belly. _And we would never have created this, you and I._

Frigga loved him. Loki could no longer convince himself she did not.

His Mother loved him enough to show him that all the love he was seeking, all the love that was ever denied him, all the love that he _deserved_ , was right in front of him all along.

Loki's hand felt along the uneven surface of the rock until it found Thor's.

Thor scooted closer toward him, his knee almost touching the edge of Loki's seat, the heat from his thigh and leg warming Loki's shin through the thin layer of blanket covering his legs.

Loki turned his head around slowly, to finally really look at his brother for the first time since their quarrel. Thor's blond hair gleamed in the sun, his chiselled features ever the epitome of perfection.

"Don't you die before me, Thor."

"You don't get to ask that of me, Loki." Thor's voice trembled. "Not you."

Loki pulled their balled hands toward him and gently fisted them against his chest. He allowed Thor to feel the steady beating of his heart against the back of his giant hand.

"Alright, Thor," he whispered. He smiled at his brother gently. "Together, then. One day."


	15. Chapter 15

"Loki?"

The protective wards were still in place but it seemed they recognised Stephen well enough to let him in; the room was empty and Loki was nowhere to be seen.

Stephen activated the glass panel and scrolled through the observations, noting in relief that there had been no further bleeding charted in the short while he had been gone. He studied the air. Loki was near. Where was he?

"Loki?" He raised his voice slightly. "Please tell me you've not turned yourself invisible just to avoid me."

After a long moment of silence,

"In here."

Stephen followed the sound of his voice into the bathroom. He could not see for all the steam - no, not steam - icy _vapour_. It had to be a few degrees below zero in here – Stephen waved a hand and the clouds dissipated.

Loki was immersed in the massive tub, almost submerged entirely in the icy water with only his face breaking the surface and not even the black of his hair visible through the suds. From the overpoweringly sharp smells of chypre wafting through the air, Stephen had a suspicion Loki had been in here for hours.

The only indication Loki gave of notice was a long leg slowly lifting out of the water and Stephen watched a slim pale foot come to rest on the rim, slowly dripping soapy water down the decorative marble panels on the side of the tub.

Stephen slowly shrugged his tunic off. He knew it was freezing cold but there was no point in getting himself wet. He walked over and knelt down by the tub, propping both arms on the rim.

Loki was still not looking at him, but at least he had raised himself out of the water and propped his upper body against the headrest. Loki's dark wet locks clung to the sides of his neck, framing his pale face, making his green eyes appear incandescent.

"Are you still mad?" Stephen asked quietly.

Loki did not answer immediately. "Which definition of mad am I to assume you are referring to?"

"The one that will sway you into forgiving me."

Seconds passed in icy silence.

"I cannot possibly forgive when no one is apologising. That would be mad," Loki said, very patiently.

"Loki…" Stephen groaned, pressing his forehead against the forearm braced against the cool tiles at the edge of the tub. His other hand flailed around sightlessly in the water until he found one of Loki's hands resting on his burgeoning stomach. "I'm _sorry."_

When Stephen lifted his head again, he could see the slightest twinge in Loki's face and suddenly his ice prince did not look all that icy anymore.

"When was the last time you slept?" Loki asked softly.

"Oh, I've gone for days without sleep before, Loki. Comes with the job," Stephen half-attempted at dry humour but Loki did not so much as smirk.

Loki raised himself from his reclining position and brought his face closer to Stephen until their noses were almost touching. Stephen felt Loki release his hand before white, wrinkly fingers emerged from the soapy water, and Stephen stifled a gasp at the sudden icy touch on his cheek. " _Jesus_ , Loki! How long have you been in the bath?"

"The baby likes it. Calms him down," Loki murmured. His green eyes were still roaming Stephen's face. They narrowed. "You are thinner."

"You have not been taking care of yourself," Loki announced. His voice was soft still, like silk. "Care to explain, Doctor?"

"I am a highly-functioning, hypomanic, Type A personality, Loki." At Loki's raised eyebrow, Stephen gave a small, reassuring smile. "Worrying about you drives me crazy."

For a second, Stephen thought Loki was about to retort with a rebuking, self-disparaging comment as he always did but Loki surprised him when he simply said, "Thank you, Stephen."

Loki gazed at him. "I pardon you."

It was astonishing how regal he sounded despite the fact that he was stark naked and covered head to toe in suds. And Stephen could not take it any longer –

He grabbed the back of Loki's head and seized his lips; Stephen kissed him long and deep, tasting the faint tang of soap and the iron-fortified honey drops Loki had started taking to raise his haemoglobin levels.

When they finally broke apart, Stephen laughed at how breathless he was feeling. His head spun from too low blood sugar and too little sleep and he gripped the edges of the bathtub tightly to keep from falling.

"Goodness. Are my lips too potent for you?" Loki asked with a faint hint of concern.

"I'm fine," Stephen murmured. "I just missed you, that's all."

"Hmm." Loki snorted delicately. He lifted a hand and pressed his index and middle fingers to Stephen's forehead; before Stephen could protest, an influx of seiðr coursed through his body, warming him from his head down to the tip of his toe and he shuddered.

"Feel better?" Loki asked, his voice lilting.

"Much." All of a sudden, the bathroom did not feel all that cold anymore, and the unexpected surge of energy seemed to have revitalised every system in his body; his head felt clearer, and the aches and pains had all but disappeared from his muscles. The rush was intoxicating, like – "Angel dust."

"I'm sorry?"

"No, _I'm_ sorry. I'm afraid you're done with your bath." Stephen plunged his hands into the water and physically lifted Loki up in a sudden burst of strength which he did not know he possessed, eliciting a surprised yelp from the raven-haired prince. "I need you, Loki."

Loki wrapped his arms around Stephen's neck as he was carefully lifted out of the bath. "But we can't –"

"No, not that. We don't have to do anything." Stephen rinsed the suds off Loki's body. He knelt on one knee and washed Loki's feet, and planted a kiss on the gentle mound of Loki's belly. "I just need _you_."

"There's something different about you."

All dried and dressed for bed, Loki was now relaxing propped up against the headboard with an open book balanced on his belly. He did not look up. "What do you mean?"

Stephen studied him over the rim of his cup. Loki had requested a light meal to be sent up for him and Stephen surprised himself by polishing off everything within minutes; his appetite was clearly returning.

"You seem calmer." _Happier_. Of course, Stephen refrained from saying it out loud. "Just…better."

Loki nodded distractedly, but he flashed him a quick smile. "I feel better. Now that you're here."

Stephen cleaned up after himself and patted the Cloak goodnight before sending it off to hang on the rack. He decided against a shower, for he did get himself wet persuading Loki out of his languorous bath, so he changed into his T-shirt and sweatpants.

He watched Loki's cheek bulge and retract periodically as he sucked on his sweet. Even that simple act was sending pulses of lust and desire up and down Stephen's body, and he suppressed a sigh of frustration.

"What's the matter, Doctor?" Loki looked up from his book. "Was the meal not satisfactory? Would you like something else from the kitchen?"

"No, I'm fine." Stephen climbed into the bed next to him.

They sat in companionable silence for what felt like hours until Stephen inhaled deeply. He knew Loki had stopped reading because the page had not turned for the past five minutes.

Stephen reached over and plucked the book off Loki's belly before gently putting it aside on the bedside table. He lifted the covers and slid his legs under them. He waited expectantly for Loki to do the same before pulling them over both their bodies. The night was particularly chilly. Yet Loki's feet were surprisingly warm.

"You've got your stockings on. Good." Stephen gave him a peck on the forehead. "You're such a model patient, Loki."

Loki resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "You don't know the half of it, Strange."

"Yeah. Thor told me about your little adventure." Stephen's eyes narrowed slightly. "Do be careful, Loki."

"Val and her big mouth." Loki muttered. "Thought women were supposed to be good at keeping secrets."

"Speaking of secrets…"

Stephen looped a thigh around Loki's leg, pulling it in closer. "I have a confession to make." Stephen hesitated. "I'm afraid I have not been entirely truthful with you."

"Is this about where you've been disappearing off to?" Loki shook his head. "You don't have to tell me anything, Stephen. I am not your keeper."

"No, well yes, but no, not about that."

Stephen laid a reverent hand on Loki's stomach, caressing it gently. "It's about our baby."

Loki's breath stilled. "Go on."

"I mentioned that the bleeding can happen again and there is no telling when or if it will happen at all, and how bad it is going to be," he started.

"But I _am_ being careful, Stephen –" Loki halted in mid-sentence at the touch of Stephen's finger to his lips.

"I know, darling, I know." Stephen soothed. "But I never told you that when the time comes, the baby is going to need help. A lot of help."

"Is something bad going to happen to him?" He watched the fear grow in Loki's green eyes. "Is my body – is this hurting him?"

"No, no, Loki. No." Stephen grabbed his hand under the covers. Loki's feet may be warm, but his fingers were freezing. "I'm afraid it is going to hurt _you_ , more than him."

"Oh. Good." Loki looked _relieved_ , and Stephen's heart twisted in pain. "That's, okay. I think."

Stephen's jaw clenched. The guilt, the remorse, it was all coming back again.

"W-What is going to happen, Stephen?"

"You will not be able to deliver him normally, Loki. Once the contractions start, the abnormal positioning of the placenta will almost certainly cause you to bleed out catastrophically and you wouldn't make it long enough for the baby to be born."

Loki stared at him long and hard. His expression wavered from fear to uncertainty to deep grief and finally, determination.

"So cut him out of me."

Stephen's stomach lurched.

"I'm so sorry, Loki."

"I don't want to hear it, Stephen." It was Loki's turn to squeeze Stephen's hand. Loki took a deep breath.

"You did what you had to. You saved my life." Loki brought Stephen's knuckles to his mouth and stilled the shakes with a touch of his lips.

Stephen felt his eyes burn and he swallowed hard. "Loki…"

"And I'm not sorry we made love either. If we hadn't, we would probably never have learnt of this…problem until I go into labor, and whatever disaster that ends up happening will definitely then be too late to avert."

Stephen nodded. He was at a loss for words. He cupped Loki's cheek tenderly.

"It is okay, Stephen."

Stephen kissed his forehead, apologising silently over and over in his head –

Loki balled his fists into the front of Stephen's T-shirt.

"I am okay." He whispered. "Truly."

Stephen pulled back. Despite Loki's reassuring words, his anxiousness was not soothed as rapidly as he would have liked. "You're taking this awfully well."

Loki shrugged. "The night I got pregnant I woke up in the most terrible pain I had ever been. Then I spent the next two months flipping the coin to choose the poison of the day, be it debilitating nausea or a monstrous headache. I could not and still cannot teleport without collapsing, and I could not walk ten steps without the floor threatening to kiss my face. Then a sorcerer hit me with a spell, kidnapped me, locked me in another dimension and in attempting to break free, I took a fall. A stupid fall that not only almost killed me and my baby, it damaged my insides that now I cannot even have sex without bleeding like, pardon the expression, a stuck pig."

"So in the grand scheme of things, Doctor, a life-saving surgical procedure is nothing." Loki sighed and closed his eyes. "My life in your hands, remember?"

Stephen listened with a slightly stunned expression on his face. Loki was not one to complain, always keeping his pains to himself. He could not put his finger on it but something must have happened in his absence; Loki seemed to be thawing more with each passing day.

"You're really something, Loki Odinson."

"Something what?" Loki asked drowsily.

"Just an expression." Stephen reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Loki's ear. "Means I think you're amazing."

Loki opened his eyes slowly and gazed at him thoughtfully. "You could have just said amazing, you know."

"Amazingly vain." Stephen smiled benevolently. "But I love you."

Stephen tipped his face forward and kissed him gently. Loki's lips were dry and soft, curling slightly into a smile as he leaned into the kiss in response. "So you've said, Doctor."

* * *

Thor was surprisingly a very good listener.

After Stephen had finished explaining and presenting the options on the table, Thor nodded once, betraying none of his emotions. Outwardly he looked calm and every inch the King he was born to be. All he did was steal a glance at his brother sitting quietly next to him before turning at once to look at Bruce.

"What say you, Banner?"

"I think Tony is true to his words. I don't believe he means any harm by offering the Tower and he does possess access to the best medical and surgical facility in America –" Bruce tapped his spectacles against his crossed arms, "He will do his best to protect Loki and baby from SHIELD and whoever else who might be too…interested."

Thor nodded. He turned to Loki. He prompted gently, "Brother?"

Loki in turn, looked to Stephen. "Give us your opinion, Doctor. An honest one, if you please."

Stephen shook his head. He had decided on this matter long before he broached the issue upon requesting audience with the King. If he cast his vote for New York, it would be entirely out of selfishness and sentiment. Sanctum Sanctorum was in good hands; it would not fall without him.

"It is your decision, Loki." He remembered Thor's speech. "The onus is on me to respect it, honour it, and make it happen."

Stephen thought he could see Valkyrie, standing a few feet behind the King and the Prince, lift an eyebrow before breaking into an approving smile.

"Thor?" Loki turned back toward his brother, almost desperately.

Thor reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Loki. I am your King. But I have been your brother long before that. I know you have already come to a decision, I can see it in your face."

Thor spread his hands. "Come, Brother. Tell us."

"As much as I'd hate to be indebted to Anthony Stark," Loki started, inhaling deeply. "I am aware of the dire situation I am in and I duly thank you all for your concern."

He clasped his hands on the table and leaned forward.

"But I am a Prince of Asgard. This will be the first Royal birth since the fall of old Asgard, and who knows when the next Royal birth will happen, seeing as our King is idle still in begetting himself a queen – " he glared at his brother, "but there is nowhere else I would rather have my child than right here. The place of our new beginning."

"I will do it here for my King, for our people," Loki hesitated, surreptitiously glancing at Stephen. "For me."

Stephen reached under the table for his hand. "And for _us_."

Thor looked so delighted he could burst. "So, it is decided. Do give friend Stark our thanks. In fact, I think I will come with you to convey this joyous news! When are we leaving? Brother, you have no inkling of how joyful you have made me – would you like me to get you anything while I am on my excursion? Horse meat, anything?"

"Mushrooms, Thor." Loki gave him a beatific, almost chiding smile.

Thor bellowed a hearty laughter. He grabbed the sides of Loki's head and planted a kiss on top of his head. "Mushrooms it is then. Come, Strange! Let us be on our way!"

Thor marched out of the Hall, with Valkyrie trailing behind. She gave them a thumbs-up and a wink. Strange and Banner exchanged bewildered looks.

Loki rolled his eyes. "Don't ask."

"Dr Palmer."

Christine yelped in surprise. "For God's sake, Stephen!"

"How did you know it was me?"

"Well, seeing that this is my office, my _locked_ office, and the last time I saw you, you could turn yourself into a ghost and you know how ghosts can walk through walls –" Christine waved a hand, "And because you're my ex-boyfriend, of course I'd know your voice anywhere and so what are you doing here?"

"It's good to see you, Christine."

"Likewise, Stephen. Anytime you come to see me without bringing me a gift in the form of life-threatening injuries and tamponades is a welcome visit."

She rose to give him a hug. He kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her arms.

"I see you have finally moved on." He looked pointedly at the ring on her finger.

She blushed prettily. "Oh, this old thing?" She swept her reddish-blond hair out of her eyes.

"Things turn out not quite how you expect all the time, you know?"

Stephen reeled in horror. "No…don't tell me. It's not Nick, is it? Nicodemus _West_?"

"No, no, _no!"_ Christine laughed. "But I understand how that could bruise your ego so much more than our break-up would."

"Perhaps even more than losing my hands." Stephen muttered.

"It's someone you've never met. The total opposite of you, if you'd care to know."

"I'm glad. You deserve only the best, Christine."

Stephen's words were nothing but sincere, yet the shadows in his eyes did not go unnoticed. Christine searched his face worriedly.

"Stephen, what's the matter?"

"I have a rather delicate request to ask of you." Stephen looked up at the ceiling and bobbed his head from side to side. "A _huge_ favour, actually."

"When is it ever not." Christine blew a delicate raspberry of her own. "Spit it out, Strange. Haven't got all night. Got tons of post-op reports to write up." She turned around to switch her computer and printer on, preparing for a long night ahead.

"My lover's pregnant with Grade 3 Placenta Praevia," Stephen said monotonously as if he was simply presenting a case to a colleague, but his voice shook in a way that only someone close to him could tell. The way Christine's back stiffened gave the indication she did. "I think it necessitates a Caesarean section that for reasons I'd rather not mention, cannot be performed in a regular hospital."

Christine sank back in her chair. With a resigned sigh that revealed her years of hard work and having dealt with much stranger things, she asked conspiratorially, her back still turned. "Is your lover an illegal?"

"Uh, yeah, in a way, you can consider Loki an illegal..." Stephen found it quite humorous and he snickered. "Yeah."

"Loki," Christine tried the name on her tongue. "That's an unusual name. Where's she from?"

Stephen hesitated. "It's a _he_."

Christine swiveled around in her chair. She blinked exactly three times before she spoke again, her voice strangely light, her question sounding more like a statement. "Is this Loki _human_."

When Stephen did not answer, Christine's eyes widened to the size of saucers. She looked him up and down. She shot out of her seat and grabbed something out of her jacket that was hanging on the door.

Christine furiously typed something on her phone, before shoving it in his face seconds later- " _This_ Loki?"

Strange squinted and whistled. "That's actually not a bad picture…"

Granted, it was an old picture taken during the invasion of New York, but there was no mistaking it, the gold and green armour, the tall and slender form, the jet-black hair – "Yep. That's him."

Stunned, Christine slammed her phone down on the table with a bang. Stephen winced at the crack. She had not even noticed; she was too busy staring at him in horror.

"Stephen…he is not even human. How am I supposed to operate on him?" She covered her mouth with a hand. "Isn't he like a Prince from an alien planet or something? Won't he execute me if things go wrong?"

Stephen rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. "Well…I did some ultrasound scans on him and he looked normal-ish, inside. He's got roughly the same apparatus like us – yours – I mean, women! Human women! _God_."

Christine's face had drained of all colour.

"No one will be executing anybody, Christine." He knelt in front of her and reached over for her hand.

"Look, I would give anything to be able to do it myself. But I can't." He covered her hand with both hands now, "Please. You are the only one I can trust."

"Where is he now?"

"He's in Norway."

"Norway?!" Christine shrieked. "That's 8 hours of flying time, Stephen! How the hell do you expect me to be there when the time comes?"

"Well, if you were to use my Pick-A-Portal service, the traveling time is drastically shortened to…approximately thirty seconds." Stephen attempted a grin.

Christine's hand was shaking too. But she clasped her other hand on top of Stephen's.

"I can't believe you're doing this to me again."

"I'll bring you chocolates and flowers next time, I promise."

Christine laughed shakily.

After a while of calming her nerves down, her hands finally stopped trembling.

"You're in luck, Strange. My fiancé just happens to be an OB-GYN here at Metro-General. I can shadow him for a while, learn the techniques and how to deal with complications, it's no biggie." Christine released her hold on his hands and clasped her own over her knees. "I will help you."

Stephen's relief was almost palpable. "Oh, thank God. Thank you." Stephen dropped into the chair next to her and palmed his eyes.

Christine watched him silently. "You alright?"

Stephen shook his head.

"You going to be alright?"

He nodded.

"I'm terrified."

"You're doing your catastrophising thing again, aren't you?"

"Murphy's Law, Christine." Stephen's eyes were hollow, despite the elated relief he had felt only moments ago. "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

Christine shook her head. "I've told you over and over. Doctors can choose to think like that and be prepared for every eventuality in the world but you will never find peace in your work."

"That's why you always advocate Yhprum's law." At Christine's raised eyebrows, Stephen shrugged. "I listened to you sometimes when you talked to your medical students and interns."

" 'Everything that can work, will work.' " He quoted, tasting it on his tongue and decided he liked it much more.

Christine beamed. She tapped a finger against the side of her head. "Positive thinking, Strange. You should try it sometimes. It does work, you know." She wiggled her ring finger. "Case in point."

Stephen smiled gently. "I am happy for you, Christine."

"And I, you." She leaned in for a quick kiss on the lips. Then she swiveled around in her chair, turning once more toward her mountain of paperwork.

"Send me the scans so I can study his anatomy. God help us if I cut him the wrong way and end up in his oesophagus or something."


	16. Chapter 16

"Are you sure he should be doing that?" Tony's voice was laced with avid curiosity rather than concern; he was not usually one to deny anybody their quirks and fancies but that… "Looks pretty dangerous."

Stephen watched critically as Loki scaled the side of the golden dome of the new wing of the Healing Halls as effortlessly as gliding on water before settling himself down cross-legged on top of it. "He makes it look so damn easy." He muttered with the slightest hint of envy, but Tony knew it was mostly to mask his anxiety.

"Loki likes to watch." Thor murmured. "He must have the best view to everything. Reassuring as it is that my brother has regained his strength and health, precaution is of utmost importance – if only he could sit still for one damn minute to listen."

"He's restless, the nearer he gets to…you know." Stephen gave a hand signal that vaguely alluded to something. "The Cloak could sense it too, I think."

"That's hardly surprising. Your cape is clearly a woman." Tony nudged his chin at the way The Cloak wrapped itself tighter around Loki's shoulders and pulled the trickster backward slightly to right his position perched so precariously on the dome. "Women know these things."

Stephen noted the serious look on his friend's face. "What is it, Stark?"

"The construction of the new Surgical Wing is about 80 percent finished, Pepper's vetted and hand-picked all the nursing staff and my personal team of physicians has also been briefed and are on stand-by…" he hesitated, "I just hope we can get everything sorted quickly, I hate not knowing my deadline. You seriously have NO idea when he's going to pop?"

"You perfectionists. You just cannot stand your unknown variables, can you?"

"Can you?"

Stephen crossed his arms and tapped a finger against his bicep, a nervous tic. He did not need Tony to make him even more antsy than he already was. Then Christine's words reverberated in his mind like a caffeine shot of psychotherapy.

"Think positive, Stark. And the universe thinks with you."

"Yeah and the universe will wipe your tears and pick up the pieces after we mess up for not planning or doing enough," Tony muttered darkly. Stephen glowered at him but decided to remain quiet; he supposed there was a reason why they became and stayed friends, kindred spirits in catastrophising and all.

"You worry too much, my friends." Ever the beam of sunshine that sliced through dark clouds of defeatism like clarified butter, Thor clapped his hands on their respective shoulder with more enthusiasm than he intended, and they winced.

"Trust Loki." Thor gripped Stephen's shoulder, "Loki will know. He always knows."

* * *

It was in the middle of the night when Strange awoke, having sensed something amiss. He studied the darkness when he realised Loki was no longer lying next to him; as his eyes focused, they caught sight of the familiar form sitting hunched forward on the side of the bed with his back toward him -

"What's the matter, Loki?" Stephen reached out a hand and his fingers grazed Loki's back, instantly alarmed by how tense Loki felt through the flimsy layer of his tunic. "Is something wrong?"

Stephen's alarm grew when Loki took a few seconds too long to answer, and when he finally did, he sounded suspiciously wary. "I'm not quite sure. I don't think so."

"Is it contractions?" Stephen's heart began to pound in fear.

Loki shook his head. "No, it's not pain that I feel – more like, a tightness. Like a band squeezing around my belly." He sighed, "It's keeping me awake."

"Ah." Stephen nodded thoughtfully. He sat up and swung his legs down the side of the bed, patting the pillow. "Come, lie down. Let me have a feel."

Loki's tired sigh did not go unnoticed and Stephen could not help the pangs of worry as Loki gingerly lay himself down on Stephen's side of the bed, resting his head on the pillow. Stephen righted his position slightly, sitting sideways on the bed, torso turned to face Loki.

With the warmth of Stephen's body pressing into his side, Loki tried to relax. The clamping tightness around his abdomen had receded somewhat but he supposed there was no harm to indulge Stephen in his ministrations; he knew Stephen would not be able to sleep if his mind was not at rest.

Stephen slid his hand underneath Loki's shirt and placed it flat against the side of his abdomen. "Try to get some sleep. I'm just trying to feel for contractions and timing them if there's any."

Loki covered his mouth with the back of one hand, stifling a yawn. "Knock yourself out, Strange."

A good five minutes passed before Stephen finally felt it. A slight quiver of Loki's eyebrows indicated that what Stephen was sensing under his palm was in sync with what he was feeling.

The bunching of muscles lasted for less than ten seconds before Loki's abdomen relaxed and became soft once more. "Was that what you meant?"

Loki nodded, eyes still closed. "It's more irritating than uncomfortable, really."

"Has the baby been moving as per usual?"

"More so than usual if you can believe it." Loki flung an arm over his eyes. "I was never this rambunctious as a child."

Stephen tutted in sympathy. "I think he got that from me." Loki gave him a glare, and Stephen pointed at himself with the other hand not currently attached to Loki. "Manic, remember?"

"I wonder if Bruce has still got that wonderful sleeping draught," Loki muttered.

Stephen murmured a spell under his breath and coaxed the clenching muscles under his hand to relax. He kept his hand on Loki's belly for a few more minutes and waited to see if the spasms would return, but alas they did not. "That should do it for tonight."

Loki opened his eyes. "Everything as it should be, Doctor?"

"As it should be, Loki." Stephen gave him a reassuring smile. "They are to be expected, really, these things. Braxton-Hicks would be my educated guess."

"Is medical nomenclature nonsensical all the time or do you healers give your name freely to everything in order to disguise your lack of creativity as a symbol of altruism of some sort?"

"Yes, we are all vain creatures, we crave fame, recognition and credit even for things that are not necessarily ours to claim." Stephen shrugged nonchalantly. "Can you imagine having something named after me? Like, 'Yes, Doctor, I think the Strange Procedure is the best method to approach the tumour' or 'Nurse, pass me the Strange catheter, this patient hasn't peed for three days'?"

Stephen shook his head. "Good thing I never discovered anything."

Loki laughed softly. It was a rare sound. Stephen felt strangely warmed by how beautiful it sounded.

"So…what are these Hicks things supposed to be then?" Loki asked, rubbing the side of his belly up and down gingerly.

Stephen pulled Loki's tunic down to cover his abdomen once again. "To put it very simplistically, they are kind of like 'warm-up' or practice contractions."

"Practice contractions?" Loki's nose wrinkled. "How strange. Whatever do we need them for?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe some women need to be eased into labour, otherwise it'd be a shock to their system." Stephen sighed. "But what I do know is women tend to get more of them when they're dehydrated, stressed, overly tired, and – you haven't been holding your bladder, have you?"

Loki scoffed. "Wish I could. Your Strange catheter sounds almost palatable actually if it can help me not to have to go and relieve myself every fifteen minutes."

"Well, at least that means you're drinking plenty." Stephen lifted one of Loki's legs onto his lap, studying his slightly swollen shin. "You have been on your feet all day. You might want to take it easy from now on."

After a few minutes of kneading the soles of Loki's feet, a pale hand stilled Stephen's wrist in the midst of massage, and Stephen helped Loki shift to his side of the bed, frowning at the slight wince marring Loki's delicate features as Loki tried to get comfortable.

"Is this a sign that labour is nigh?"

"Well…the baby is half-human and by human standards, you are well into the third trimester now." Stephen turned to his side and propped himself up on an elbow. "It's so much harder to predict because we don't actually know what the supposed length of gestation is."

"I'm stretched so tight I don't think there's any more room to grow." Loki breathed in deeply. "Can hardly breathe right."

"But you have to tell me when the contractions start becoming painful or more regular. I don't want you risking dilating your cervix. Even if we're well-stocked on your blood to last you five pregnancies more."

"Five, Strange?" Loki's eyes danced. "That's…very ambitious of you."

Stephen chose not to speak, deciding instead to let his actions speak for him. He encircled an arm around Loki's expansive waist and pulled him in toward him; their chests would have met in the middle but for the bump and Stephen could feel the little kicks against his own abdomen.

"We will do it right the next time. No more accidents." Stephen let the heat from his hand warm Loki's belly and he smiled in delight as his son kicked again against his palm. "As much as I love surprises."

"You…want to have more babies?" Loki said, a little breathlessly. "With me?"

"I want to have everything with you."

Loki's eyes glazed over. "You really mean it."

"Whatever short lifetime I have left, I want to spend it with you, if you will have me." Stephen leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on Loki's lips. "And I will give you as many children as you want, lest I leave you with nothing else to remember me by." He pressed their foreheads together, "Lest you forget."

Loki's eyes filled. "I have been told I have a very good memory."

Stephen lay transfixed as Loki's long fingers caressed his temple as if memorising every line and curve of his face. Once he was done, Loki's eyes fluttered to a close and he leaned in to kiss him softly on the lips, and Stephen knew no words were needed. Only this.

* * *

Bruce unwrapped the blood pressure cuff from around Loki's arm. "You holding up okay?"

Loki unconsciously massaged his upper arm against the phantom tightness of the cuff. "I'm fine, considering."

"Considering what?"

Loki stifled a smile at the sudden look of trepidation in the physicist's eyes. "Do not fret so, Bruce. It is just a feeling I have."

Bruce lifted his eyebrows. "You think, soon?"

"Soon." Loki nodded. "Nine turns of the moon…perhaps the child is possessed of more human qualities than…" Loki's voice trailed in mid-sentence. "Well. You know."

"And how does that make you feel?"

"It doesn't necessarily have to make me feel anything other than relieved, does it?"

"Relieved that he is healthy and of good weight, yes." Bruce scrolled through the tablet in his hand. "A good six-pounder as estimated by your last scan."

"Not too big, not too small."

"Just right." Bruce agreed with a smile. "Just perfect."

"Perfect." Loki returned it with a small smile of his own.

Loki watched Banner work in silence for a moment.

"Do you consider us friends, Dr Banner?"

"Of course I do, Loki." Bruce looked up in the middle of entering the data into the observation chart and gave him a distracted smile. "We stopped being enemies the moment the Hulk lost all desire to stomp your pretty face whenever he saw you back on Sakaar. He's a surprisingly good judge of character, you know."

"I am glad to hear it." Loki smiled serenely. "It makes what I am about to say easier on me."

Bruce looked at him and quickly shook his head. "No."

"If something were to happen to me –"

"No."

"Bruce, please."

"No, Loki."

"Look out for Thor. And Stephen." The casual way Loki phrased his request was so incongruent with the intense, almost imploring look in his eyes that Bruce could not for the life of him decide whether to be furious or grieved that Loki would even think –

"Thank you, Bruce. For everything."

That did _it_.

He whapped Loki on the side of the head with the tablet, hard. _"Ow!"_

"God, I've always wanted to do that."

* * *

A week later and well into his 36th week of pregnancy with no sign of imminent labour, things fell into routine and apparently, routine for Loki now meant stuffing his face. Clearly that would have been a good thing, considering Loki's default appetite level was usually that of a bird, but this was one of the times Stephen wished Loki could have been a little bit more…normal.

Stephen looked up from where he was reading his tablet and found himself playing Russian Roulette with himself in his head. _Should I? Should I not?_

 _I should._

 _Should I?_

"Loki dearest," he began.

"Hmm?" Loki licked his little finger, engrossed in the scroll he was reading. It was an ancient Sanskrit scripture Stephen had purloined from Wong's personal collection and Loki was getting pepper juice all over it.

Stephen watched as Loki magicked the mess away and reached for another colossal-sized pepper.

"Perhaps some water to wash it all down, darling? Or some ipecac?"

"Ever heard of YOLO, Strange?"

"I hardly think that applies to you anymore. You've lived and died and lived again God knows how many times."

Loki looked up from the scroll, his eyes pure ice and steel. "I am afraid you've misunderstood the context of my warning, Strange. You want to try telling me again what I can and cannot eat?"

"Loki…" Stephen warned dangerously.

Suddenly, Loki punched himself twice in the chest and let out a painfully wet burp. "Excuse me."

He winced as he rubbed circles over his sternum, trying to release the trapped air.

At least now Loki was pushing the plate away.

"I did warn you."

Stephen shook his head and turned back to the article he was reading on the latest clinical evidence in infant sensory stimulation when a grunting noise caught his attention.

Loki was bent over the table, his face as blank as stone and as white as marble. His entire body seemed to have frozen in place, before all at once, after thirty seconds of absolute standstill, everything started animating again

Nonchalantly Loki straightened up again and flipped to the next page.

Stephen rose slowly to his feet.

"Loki." He tried again. "Sweetheart."

Loki's green eyes only met his for a split second before looking away again.

" _Please_ tell me that was not a contraction face you just made."

"It…wasn't?"

"Loki..!" Stephen whipped out his phone and punched a number on speed-dial, looking absolutely furious. "You are going to be the death of me, you know that?!"

"Get me Dr Palmer." Loki's face had gone pale again, his eyes blank and glassy. "I don't give a rat's ass she's scrubbed in, get someone to cover and get her out!"

"Christine, it's me." Stephen walked over and gently extricated one of the pale hands fisting the tablecloth in a death grip and _squeezed_ , only relaxing his grip when Loki shuddered at the end throes of a particularly strong contraction. "It's time."

* * *

"Loki will know, he says." Stephen viciously applied the gel onto the pressure transducers and strapped them onto Loki's belly. "Trust Loki, he says."

"That's the stupidest advice that ever I heard," Bruce muttered.

"Hey!" Loki protested.

"Bruce, I think it best we inform the King that Prince Loki here is officially in labour, and has been for God knows how long!" Stephen growled, trying to keep his voice in check. He switched on the cardiotocograph machine that was going to be monitoring the contractions and the baby's heart rate.

"Would you look at the height of that thing!" He snapped, pointing at a particularly tall-looking wave tracing on the graph paper, " _That's_ a contraction! The mother of all contractions! Loki!"

"I think I'll go get Thor." Bruce said, giving Loki a look of sympathy. "Should probably call Tony too, keep him updated." He disappeared quickly out of the room, leaving Loki to face Stephen's wrath alone –

"Please don't be angry with me, Stephen."

Instantly, all the anger swept up through his gut and chest and evaporated like magic.

Perhaps it was.

Stephen sighed and raised a shaky hand to his forehead.

He pulled a chair and sat down. He buried his face onto the mattress, feeling the top of his head press against Loki's side. Stephen could feel Loki shaking. He groped blindly for Loki's hand and listened as Loki babbled.

"I still don't see what all the fuss is about. Everyone has babies all the time. It was a false alarm, just a false alarm." Loki swallowed hard. "The contractions aren't even all that painful now, see? And why can't I be allowed to have a normal delivery huh?"

"We've talked about this Loki." Stephen said softly, stroking his lover's hand.

"Surely there's no need for some strange Midgardian doctor to come all the way here just to cut me open – why can't you do it? Or Bruce?" Loki's eyes were darting crazily from side to side. "Where's Bruce?"

"Are you panicking? Is that what you're doing?"

"No, who says I'm panicking? I'm fucking terrified that's all. And who is this Dr Palmer then? Is he any good?"

"She's the best," Stephen said soothingly. "And I trust her with my life."

As if on cue, a portal opened and Wong stepped through, followed by a very angry-looking petite woman still in her scrubs, wisps of strawberry-blond hair peeking from underneath her surgical cap.

"Stephen." A feisty thing this woman was; Loki recoiled slightly at the stormy expression on her face. "A little heads-up next time? Like, yesterday when I could have cleared up my OT list, or this morning even, when I could have rescheduled an important elective cholecystectomy on a very, very, VERY important patient who is also my biggest benefactor?"

"Sorry. Blame him. He's the one who decided to keep the contractions all to himself and telling himself it was just gas."

"How was I supposed to know? I haven't given birth in five hundred years, Strange! I too forget things sometimes, alright?"

"Now, now let us all just calm down." The woman walked over and tentatively reached for Loki's hand, as if afraid. But perhaps she saw the look of terror on his face and decided to take pity on him for she began to clasp his hand tighter.

"Hi. Prince Loki? I'm Christine, an old friend of Stephen's. How far apart are the contractions? When was your last meal? And what was it?"

"Every five minutes, coming in hard and strong," Stephen kindly answered on behalf.

Loki shook his head, clearly still in denial –

"Last meal was a half hour ago and it was a shitload of ghost peppers with a side order of cheese-sticks." Stephen pointed at the half-empty dishes on the table. If there was glaring to be done all around, then Loki deserved the bulk of it; he was still giving the damn peppers a longing look.

"Really, Strange?" She hissed and glowered. "Didn't I tell you no food or drink _six hours_ prior to surgery?"

"Stephen," Loki called in a small voice. "Are you sure we can't wait another day to have this baby?"

* * *

"Doctor." A scrub nurse called her quietly and showed her the contents of the basin. Christine cursed under her breath. They had waited long enough. She needed to take charge. Now. Christine wrung her hands in agitation, and marched back into the anaesthetic induction room.

"If I could borrow him for just one minute, Highness – "

She physically wrestled Stephen away from the stretcher and pulled him to the side into the far corner of the room, hoping they were out of ear shot but even if they weren't, she could not care less.

"Stephen, we need to go in and deliver this baby now." She said quietly. "He has soaked through six lap pads and _dripping_. That is more than half a litre lost."

"Damn it." Stephen cursed. "I wish I had never grown those stupid peppers."

His healing spells no longer worked to slow the bleeding; it could only mean Loki had progressed into active labour and no amount of magic was likely going to interfere with the physiological nature of...nature.

"Who cares about the damn peppers!" Christine hissed. "If he bleeds out or loses the baby, aspiration is the last thing we have to worry about! Or second last, before the patency of my neck –" her hand ghosted over her throat. "But there is no time to lose, Stephen. Doctor, tell him."

The anaesthetist stepped forward from where he had been listening quietly, leaning against the medication trolley. "Dr Strange, I'm afraid Dr Palmer is right. At the moment, looking at the vital signs, Prince Loki is still adequately compensating for the blood loss, but beyond a certain point, it will all go downhill from there. Now I can try and minimise the risk of aspiration with rapid sequence intubation, but we need to decide and act fast."

Christine pressed. "I need your consent, Strange."

"Stephen?" Loki's voice rang crisp and clear, yet sounding slightly out of breath. He must have just finished riding out the tail-end of another contraction. "Are you still there?"

Stephen put his hands at his waist and tried to regulate his own breathing. "Okay. Alright. Let's do this."

Christine clapped her hands over both his biceps and squeezed his arms. " _Good_. I'll go scrub in now."

"I'll join you. For old times' sake." Stephen tried to muster a convincing grin. "Can't do any cutting but I sure as hell can hold the retractor."

She gave him a crooked smile before pushing the adjacent scrub room door open with her rear end. "See you in a few, Daddy."

"Stephen?" Loki called out again, sounding more than a little scared.

"I'm here." Stephen grabbed Loki's hand. He tried not to think of the surgical pad fast soaking up the blood underneath him. Christine was right. They should not wait any longer.

"Where's Thor?" Loki extended his neck, twisting it from side to side, trying to catch a glimpse of his brother. The scrub cap fell away from his head and his black hair tumbled out of it in sweat-soaked ringlets.

"Shh, Loki." Stephen gathered his hair and tried to tuck it back into the cap as best as he could.

Loki's eyes were bright with pain and unspilled tears. "I need Thor."

"He is right outside, Loki."

"But – "

"Loki, listen to me." Stephen gripped the sides of his face.

Realisation finally dawned on him and the light faded slightly from Loki's green eyes as a strange calmness took over.

"This is it."

"This is it." Stephen's thumbs brushed lightly against Loki's temples.

"I don't want to fall asleep."

"You won't feel a thing. You won't even realise you've been asleep until we bring you around."

Loki whimpered softly as a roll of contraction seized him again, cleaving him in two. Stephen held his hand as he clenched his jaws so tightly the veins in his neck and scalp protruded blue and angry.

"Pardon me, Your Highness." Once the contraction was over, a Healer and a scrub nurse lifted his legs gently and removed the pad, soaking wet with fresh, red blood. Wordlessly they replaced it with another one before they bowed to leave.

Loki followed them out of the room with eyes too wide and too green against his paper-white face. "I am frightened, Stephen."

"I am right here, Loki. Don't be afraid." Stephen placed a hand on the crest of Loki's belly.

"I'll try," Loki said quietly, almost sobbing.

Loki's skin felt clammy and so _cold_. Stephen fought down a raging wave of fear. "Do you trust me?"

"I trust you." Loki closed his eyes as Stephen planted a fierce kiss on his sweat-dotted forehead.

"I will wake up?" He asked quietly.

"You will. I will make sure of it," Stephen said a little more fiercely than he intended. "You don't get to cop out on me, Odinson."

He cradled the sides of Loki's face with both hands that seemed to tremble even more than usual; he hoped they masked the slight tremor in his voice he did not want Loki to notice. "We have a contract, remember?

Loki's eyes welled. "I love you, Strange."

Stephen's heart soared like it had never soared before.

"I love you more."


	17. Chapter 17

"He's under. We're clear to proceed." At the anaesthetist's words, Stephen sneaked a look behind the barrier draping where Loki had been successfully intubated and was now lying in deep slumber and hopefully not going to feel a thing.

Loki had never looked paler, his long lashes stark black against the colourless white of his cheeks.

 _Please, please be alright_

Stephen had never been much of a prayer but he was praying now to whichever God was listening

 _Please dear God let this work_

"Surgical time-out, everybody." Christine clapped her hands, "It's time."

A surgical nurse began methodically reading out the checklist.

"The patient's name, His Royal Highness Prince Loki Odinson, the procedure is an emergency lower segment Caesarean section for bleeding placenta praevia in pre-term labour, and it will be performed under general anaesthesia. Our surgeons for today are Dr Christine Palmer and Dr Stephen Strange – " Christine raised a gloved hand.

A sense of nostalgia overcame Stephen and a strange calmness settled over him like a warm blanket.

The nurse continued with the all-around introduction, "Our anaesthetists, Dr Hastings and Dr Brunner, paediatricians on-standby, Dr Glendower and Dr Donovan," The two doctors standing by the baby warmer stopped tinkering with the resuscitative equipment and raised their hands, "Scrub nurses Elliot and Jools, runner nurses Langford and Ryans. Clock now is 13:09 hours Norwegian time with an expected length of procedure of forty-five minutes."

"Everybody good to go?" At everybody's resounding aye, Christine stepped forward. Stephen met her eyes and nodded. "Come, let's do this. Scalpel, please."

* * *

"They've been in there for a long time."

"It's only been an hour, Thor." Bruce tapped a finger against the side of his mug of tea. "Time passes a hell of a lot slower when you're the one doing the waiting."

The giant LCD panel in front of them beeped in succession and the physicist reached over the coffee table for the control. The waiting lounge was immediately bathed in fluorescent light and Tony Stark's face filled the screen. "Hey buddy."

Tony's eyes roamed the room, and upon seeing neither hide nor tail of Strange, only the solemn faces all around, he winced slightly. "Loki 2.0 still not out yet?"

"Surgery's still under way." Bruce removed his spectacles from his shirt pocket and put them on, squinting at the screen. "Where are you going? Looks like you're on the runway."

"Where do you think?" Tony's image wobbled violently as they followed him running up the short flight of stairs into his private jet. "I'm not going to miss the birth of the century, hell, of the millennium! This is medical tourism beyond the frontiers of our galaxy, Bruce. Can you imagine what this will do to my intergalactic reputation?"

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Tony. We do need a bit of a cheering up."

"Be there in a few hours. In the meantime, there's an open bar behind you, guys. The drinks are not going to drink themselves, you know." The only person whose face the offer brightened was Valkyrie. Maybe this would mean she would finally stop pacing and wearing the brand-new carpet down.

"And Thor, perk up, buddy." Thor looked up, his face sombre.

"He's going to be okay." Tony reassured him with as much enthusiasm he could wring forth.

"Thank you, Stark."

The LCD panel automatically shut down as Tony ended the call.

Thor immediately leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.

"Thor…"

"You did not see him, Bruce."

When the medication they gave him to buy time failed to stop the contractions, it was only a matter of time before Loki started to haemorrhage, and heavily too. All Thor could see in his mind's eye was the terrified expression on Loki's face as they said their goodbye before they pushed him into the operating theatre. It was a goodbye too brief, too hasty - he had not wanted to let go of Thor's hand, nor Thor his.

Thor could no better bear his helplessness now than the many times he had found himself in too similar situations, knowing his brother needed him but finding himself rendered completely useless.

"He's beat the odds so many times, Thor…he has come this far." Bruce placed a hand on the God of Thunder's shoulder. "He'll pull through. He's Loki."

And as if on cue, a loud, shrill cry pierced through the tense stillness and Thor immediately leapt to his feet, "Is that –?" He broke into a wide grin.

"Quite the set of lungs on him too," Valkyrie said coolly, but her eyes shone with delight and excitement.

"Come on, come on, group hug!" Bruce was smiling so widely his cheeks felt like they were about to snap and as the Original Revengers gathered around, he threw his head back and laughed wildly. "Welcome to the Revengers, little baby!"

* * *

Stephen felt arms circle his waist from behind.

He gently stroked her arm, mindful of the ring on her finger. It was a ring that another man had placed on her hand when just a few years ago, it could have easily been him. "To think that this could have been us," he said softly.

Christine pressed her face into his back and he could feel her nod, as if in agreement.

"What we once had will always be ours, Stephen."

"And what we once had wasn't always good, was it."

Christine released her embrace but still kept an arm around his back as she moved to stand by his side. "Were we made for each other, we would have stayed together, Strange."

He nodded. How very true. He, of all people knew best the very nature of destiny, the certainty and uncertainty of fate, the paradox of it all.

"He is absolutely beautiful."

Christine laughed softly. "Every parent is almost always biased but I think I have to agree with you on that one." She marveled at the snuggly, bundled-up treasure in front of her, protected behind a glass window. "I think he is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen."

Stephen cocked his head slightly.

"What do you call that shade of hair?"

"Remember that movie we watched together the last time my nieces came over? What was it called, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? That lady who plays their sort-of Professor X?"

"You mean the movie you _made_ me watch," Stephen dead-panned. He studied his son's hair. "Oh yeah…I think I see what you mean."

"Midnight blue-black?" She made an educated guess. "I will be sure to check the Pantone chart and get back to you on that."

"Don't bother." Stephen's eyes softened. "It's perfect. He's perfect."

Christine gazed at him. "You have changed."

Stephen turned to look at her. "For the better, I hope."

"Definitely." Then the tender look in her eyes turned mischievous. "You're _much_ more pleasant to be around. Guess I have your Prince to thank for that. Finally met your match, huh?"

Stephen lifted an eyebrow, feigning offence. "Snarky doesn't suit you, Dr Palmer."

Christine laughed again. "No, that's all you. Well, the old you."

"Doctor."

A voice interrupted their comfortable camaraderie and they both turned around to see a Healer at the front door of the nursery, "His Highness is coming around, perhaps you would like to see to him?"

Stephen's heart leapt, and feeling a little flustered, he raised a hand in acknowledgment. "Of course, thank you. I will be there."

Dr Glendower, one of the attending paediatricians, knocked on the glass barrier and beckoned for Stephen to come inside. Christine urged him forward. "Go on. Take him."

Stephen's hand stilled around the knob. He turned around.

"Thank you, Christine. For everything."

The air around them stirred serene and pleasant. "I loved you."

"And I loved you." Tears filled her eyes. "Go on, Stephen. Don't keep your Loki waiting."

* * *

The bed was too comfortable. The pain was still too absent, which should not make any sense…but his best guess was he was still medicated up to his eyeballs.

That would also explain the hallucinations.

"Mother, you came."

He drowsed.

 _"I love you, my son."_

Now he was hearing voices too? Okay.

"Loki."

He grunted. His eyelids were heavy, so heavy. Maybe Mjolnir was sitting on them.

"Thor? Get your hammer off ma face…" he mumbled.

"Loki, open your eyes."

"I can't." His mouth was full of cotton balls. " 'm asleep..go...away.."

"Loki, open your bloody eyes right now and look at your son."

Loki's eyes flew open. All fog lifted from his befuddled brain. What remained was a very bright room, with very white walls, the only colour being the strangely familiar grey eyes looking at him, deep-set and intense, the dishevelled brown hair and beard, the greying at his temples – Loki felt like he should know this face.

He felt like he should know this man's tired, drawn face very well.

"Hey," The man spoke. He was holding something in his arms.

"Hi."

"We made it."

"We made it." Loki could only echo his words. Cotton balls.

"We made _him_." The man angled the bundle in his arms upward so Loki could see and the sight, oh the sheer sight of it stole his breath away –

" 's not a dream?" Loki murmured. He felt so weak. Yet he mustered all his strength to lift out a hand, to reach out, to touch. He needed to _touch_.

"It's not a dream, Loki."

The man shifted his arms and suddenly the bundle was thrust right into the crook of Loki's neck. He gasped as the weight of the baby against the bend of his elbow reeled him in and his awareness returned in a jolt like a snapped tether.

Of course. Of course, Loki knew who this man was.

"Stephen."

The relief on Stephen's face instantly brought his haggard features to life.

He beamed and laid a shaky hand reverently on Loki's hairline, sweeping his hair off his high forehead. "You're back."

Loki stared in wonder at Stephen before his eyes dropped once again to the precious thing he was holding in his arm. "Is he – he is _ours?_ Yes?" He sounded desperately hopeful.

Stephen could not help but laugh. "Yes, yes he is."

"I can't believe it," Loki murmured. His forehead wrinkled. "You're sure?"

Stephen laughed again. " _Yes_ , Loki." He laid a hand carefully on Loki's now-flat stomach, mindful of the dressing covering the surgical incision running across his abdomen. "See?"

"He's too beautiful." Loki shook his head in amazement. "My son." He looked up, eyes shiny with tears. "Stephen, look. Our beautiful little boy."

"He looks just like you," Stephen murmured but there was no envy in his voice, only awe. The milk-white skin, the glossy black hair just a few shades off Loki's own with the most exquisite bluish undertones, Stephen's full red lips and the brightest, bluest –

"How come he's got Thor's eyes?" Loki's forehead wrinkled once again in confusion.

"Most human babies are born with blue eyes, Loki," Stephen explained patiently. "Has to do with the melanin or something or other."

"Oh. Okay." Loki nodded, not really understanding but in the grand scale of things, he could not care less, be the baby blue or green or red-eyed even – A surge of emotions rushed through him and he pulled the sweet-smelling bundle in toward him, crushing him to his chest. "You're _mine_."

Ignoring the intravenous line that was criss-crossing haphazardly all over the place, Loki's other hand reached across his body and fisted the front of Stephen's scrubs, tugging him out of the chair. "You're mine too."

Stephen's face crumbled, and he crushed Loki's lips in a raucous kiss, feeling the sheer exhaustion and desperation and despair and every ounce of nerve-wracking anxiety and just the total _weight_ of it all drain and disappear, only to be replaced with an avalanche of jubilation and exhilaration and so much _love_.

Tears dropped onto Loki's face, and Loki licked them away, tasting and savouring the salt on his tongue –

"Oh, Strange. Not you." Loki's eyes welled.

And Doctor Stephen Strange held the love of his life and his child and there was nothing else in the whole universe that would ever come close to this;

He was home.

* * *

"Dr Palmer."

Christine pulled the curtains back around them for privacy. She was still in her scrubs but her hair was free and it fell across her shoulders in gentle waves.

"Prince Loki."

"Please, let us do away with unnecessary formalities, Doctor." He waved a princely hand around. "Just Loki is fine."

"Just Christine then." When she smiled, she lit up the room. Taking a seat to the right of him, she reached for his hand and Loki found himself complying; she felt for his pulse just like Stephen always did with him and the familiarity of it all put him at ease.

"How are you feeling?" She ran her hand over Loki's palm and pinched the tips of his fingers gently. "Any pain anywhere? Dizziness, light-headedness, feeling sick to your stomach?"

"I'm fine." Loki shook his head. He was fast regaining his strength, and he could feel his seiðr stirring and working feverishly to heal him inside; he could feel the blood circulating and warming his extremities, returning to his cheeks and there was a clarity in his head that he did not realise he had been missing.

"So you are she." Loki's voice was soft. "The one that got away."

Christine did not falter in her ministrations. Her hands gently felt his abdomen next, feeling for what was hopefully a well-contracted womb.

"Yes. I am," she answered calmly.

Loki studied her. Her features were delicate and very pretty, but there was a fire in her that resonated with the kind of spirited energy that Loki just knew was what must have drawn Stephen to her.

It drew Loki to her too.

"Thank you. I owe you my life, and that of my child."

Her fingers finally stilled. They reached up to brush her blond hair that had fallen into her eyes as Christine shook her head slowly.

"No, Loki. I should be the one thanking you."

Loki stared at her in open curiousity and wonder.

"I am afraid I do not follow," he smiled regretfully.

Christine did not answer immediately. Her eyes fell on the ring on her finger and she inhaled deeply.

"Please, tell me what is on your mind, Doctor. Even if it is about Stephen."

Loki's crisp, clear voice pulled her gaze toward him and as if mesmerised, she leaned back slowly in her chair.

"Thank you," she whispered. She folded her hands in her lap and her eyes took on a distant look of nostalgia.

"When you love someone and you can't be with them, the only thing you can do is pray that they find someone who can love them just as much as you and more."

When she gave him a smile, it was not of sadness or loss, but one of hope and gratitude. "You are the answer to my prayers, Loki."

He decided he liked her, very much. "I like you, Christine."

Christine could feel her cheeks burn. "I like you too, I guess?"

She could see now how Stephen could have fallen for him. They were so alike, Stephen and Loki, perhaps more than they realised –

"What was he like?"

"He was a pompous _ass_."

Loki rolled his eyes. "He still is."

"Oh no, no, surprisingly not so much now. He was a _nightmare_." Christine shook her head. There was a mischievous glint in her eye that reminded Loki much of himself. "I think you've fixed him."

"Surely not." Loki laid his head back on the pillow, regarding her thoughtfully. "I am my own man, as much as Stephen is his own."

"That's the beauty of being in love, isn't it. Bringing the best out of each other." The wistful smile on her lips did not go unnoticed.

"I wish you all the happiness in the world with the one you love, Dr Palmer."

A flutter in her stomach told her perhaps she too, was falling a little bit in love with this being, this Ice Prince from outer space. "And I wish you both all the love in the world, Highness."

Her eyes watered. "You take care of him for me, alright?"

Loki took her hand. "You were the first one to reach inside me and grab hold of my son. There is nothing I will not do for you, Christine."

"This I promise." His green eyes were intense, yet gentle, as gentle as his words.

"Goodness." She could lose herself in those eyes. She cleared her throat. "So, will we be expecting another baby in the nearest future? I need to plan my holidays around it."

Loki groaned. "Don't hold your breath."

Christine laughed.

* * *

"Have your parents named you yet, my sweet boy?"

"Stian," Loki murmured. "His name is Stian."

Loki had said it with no hesitation when Stephen asked him about it earlier and truthfully, Stephen could not come up with something else that sounded even remotely better.

"Ah. The Wanderer," Thor murmured in delight. "A good name if I may say so myself, Loki. May like his parents, he be quick on his feet, leaping from one universe to another in search of knowledge, fulfillment and wisdom and may he never know strife, pain and suffering for as long as he shall live."

Loki watched as the King of Asgard lay a gentle kiss on his newborn nephew's forehead.

"Thank you, Thor."

"My heart is filled with so much love I cannot bear to part with him, just look at how perfect he sits in my arms –"

"No, no, it's my turn now, Thor! Give him to me!" Thor tried to swerve, even put a hunkanormous arm out to push him away, but the physicist's grubby, greedy hands gained the upper hand as they predicted his move; Bruce swooped and snatched the precious bundle out right under the King of Asgard's nose and Thor could not help but whine in protest.

"Stian Lokisson-Strange." Bruce murmured. "I like the sound of that. Feels like the name of a Nobel Prize winner." He fondly nuzzled his nose into thick hair the glossiest shade of midnight, marveling at how unearthly sweet-scented newborn babies could be. "Will you be a scientist then, little Stian, like your Godfather?"

Stian made a noise, a cross between a burp and a mewl.

"Oh yes," Bruce started to coo. "Your Uncle Bruce is so, so proud of you, yes, he is."

Loki reached for Stephen's hand, squeezing it gently. "Don't look so cross, darling. Let them have their fun." He felt Stephen intertwine their fingers in response, and Loki whispered under his breath, a wistful smile gracing his lips. "Their season in the sun."

As Thor fought with Bruce to wrest control of the baby once more, Loki watched on, butterflies all aflutter in his stomach. And for the first time in a very, very long time, Loki felt his heart fill with the purest of joy and happiness and it was so tranquil and peaceful yet so bright and overwhelming that he could not help but

"Oh Loki."

He could not see beyond the tears

He could feel someone wiping them at first, then kissing them away gently, then fervently as the tears kept falling and falling like giant pearls down his cheeks

"Loki, Loki," Stephen murmured. "Please don't cry…"

* * *

 _Years later in New Asgard_

"Good morning." Stephen swooped into the kitchen, all showered and barefoot. He padded over to the svelte figure still dressed in his bathrobe standing by the French windows who was calmly watching the Norwegian sunrise with a mug of coffee in one hand.

Stephen pulled back the raven locks, exposing the expanse of Loki's long neck and pressed a soft kiss to the nape of it, savouring the familiar scent of sweat, sex and sandalwood, "Morning, my Loki."

"Morning," Loki murmured, turning his face slightly to nuzzle his cheek against the top of Stephen's head. "Stian up yet?"

"Yes, he's all bathed and ready to go." Stephen wrapped his arms around Loki's waist and rested his chin on the trickster's shoulder. "Seems very excited about going on his first 'hunt.' "

"Oh, I think Thor is even more excited than he." Loki clucked his tongue in a peculiar mix of distaste and fondness. "Did you know he bought Stian a Shetland _and_ a Welsh?"

Stephen frowned. "Thor's going to spoil him rotten."

Loki snorted. "You're four years behind time if you've only just realised that, Sorcerer Supreme. You need to catch up."

"Oh, I intend to." Stephen tightened his hold around Loki and breathed in deeply. The crisp smell of his lover's linen bathrobe was doing all sorts of things to his body; his sexual arousal did not go unnoticed for Loki suddenly leaned backward into him and stretched languidly, wrapping his gangly arms around the back of Stephen's neck.

How Loki could do that without spilling piping hot coffee all over him was anyone's guess. "I'm afraid I am in need of you again, Loki."

"I think the whole of Asgard is still recovering after the night we had, Stephen." Loki's fingers kneaded into the back of Stephen's scalp. "What's the phrase Bruce used that one time we fried not only his laminar flow closet, but his prized centrifuge machine? That they got caught in the 'Blast Radius of the Seiðr Sex Nuke from Hel'?"

"Sorry, not sorry." Stephen nipped the soft cartilage of Loki's ear, eliciting a small laughter from his raven-haired prince, either from the tickling or at the pseudoapology. "Do indulge your dear husband, my love. You know how much I've missed you."

"Serves you right for being gone so long."

"A pilgrimage is not something to be hurried, Loki. It is a sacred journey with an intended purpose to purify, fortify, clarify –"

"Bla bla bla Mystic Arts balderdash bla." Loki sniffed haughtily.

"God I am so turned on right now." Stephen murmured, his face burrowing deeper into Loki's dark locks.

"If you could get our sweet boy over to his Uncle, I'll make you some breakfast and then we can think about going at it again like bunnies," Loki said sweetly.

Stephen did not need telling twice. "Stiaann! Come on, buddy, chop chop!"

"Daddy."

Stephen's heart jolted to his throat. He whirled around –

 _How on earth?_

One second his son was standing on the mezzanine landing looking down on them and the next Stian was suddenly standing behind him in his riding breeches and helmet, looking every inch the perfect little Equestrian.

Stephen looked down, and said drily, "You could have just walked."

Mischievous hazel eyes twinkled. "Uncle Thor said _you_ never walked anywhere."

"I swear your Brother still hates me." Stephen rolled his eyes. "He's turning my own son against me."

Amused, Loki stooped and lightly dusted a hand across the boy's show jacket. "Not too much mischief today alright? Be extra careful, I don't want you falling - if you need anything just ask away and drive your Uncle crazy for me."

"Yes, Pappa." Stian stood on tiptoe expectantly and Loki turned his face to accept a kiss on the cheek

Loki tucked a stray lock of glossy black hair under the helmet and fastened it tighter. "I love you."

"Love you too, Pappa." Stian pulled on his riding gloves. "Come on, Daddy. Chop chop."

Loki straightened to his full height and laughed softly.

Stephen conjured his favourite pair of walking slippers and hurried to follow his son who was already out the front door, muttering under his breath, "How come _I_ never get a kiss."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Hurry back and I'll make up for all the kisses your son owes you."

Stephen grew visibly more excited and he flashed Loki a grin, "Don't go anywhere."

Out on the corridor at the very far end of the hallway where the Prince's private wing met the rest of the Royal Household, Stian was already throwing himself into the King's arms, squealing in delight as Thor swung him around in giant circles. Stephen jogged over to join them.

"Brother!" Thor smiled widely, hefting his nephew onto one broad shoulder. "I did not know you were back."

"Right." Stephen did not believe that for a second. "Thank you for offering to take him today. I do hope it's not too much trouble."

"On the contrary, I was looking forward to spending some time with him. You ready, my sweet prince?"

Stian nodded up and down excitedly, "Bye, Daddy!" To Stephen's exasperation, the little brat waved Stephen _along,_ more than goodbye –

 _"Stephen."_

Stephen watched in fond amusement as Thor swiveled around and trod down the corridor with Stian bobbing up and down his shoulder, "Uncle Thor, once I'm good with horses, can we go join Daddy and Pappa to hunt bunnies? I want a black one and a white one, just like my ponies."

"Bunnies?" Thor echoed in mild confusion. Stephen's ears burned. He turned around in the direction of his living quarters before he could catch any more of their conversation –

 _"Stephen."_

 _"Loki our firstborn takes after you so much, by hook or by crook, I will make damn sure our next one takes after m-"_

 _"Stephen!"_

 _"Loki?"_ Stephen frowned. _"What's the matter?"_

 _"Please…help –"_ And Loki screamed over the connection, a raw, deep, anguished cry of pure agony, and Stephan _ran_.

He found Loki on all fours, his mug shattered into pieces on the floor and his pristine white robe stained black with spilled coffee; Stephen side-stepped the jagged pieces of broken porcelain and crouched down next to the prince whose face had gone chalk white with pain. "What hurts, Loki?"

"S-stomach," Loki gasped, his eyes scrunched tightly but not enough to keep the tears from escaping and he choked for breath, flailing in Stephen's arms as another violent cramp seized his guts like a steel-jaw trap.

"Wrap your arms around my neck," Stephen urged, trying to stay calm. He slipped an arm around Loki's chest in the attempt to lift him but Loki's weight brought them down as he collapsed again, prostrating to the floor.

"I can't," Loki sobbed, curling in on himself, pressing both forearms against his abdomen, against the inferno of excruciating pain ravaging his insides. " _Fuck!_ "

"Loki!" Stephen used all his strength to pry Loki's arms away, "I'm so sorry, love, but you have to let me see – "

Stephen clumsily unraveled the tie and parted the robe, revealing the smooth, pale skin of Loki's abdomen; nothing seemed amiss, but when Stephen's hand reached out to touch, he immediately sensed a _pull_ of magic, and Loki moaned low, long and despairing. "Oh, you have got to be fucking _kidding_ me!"

"Give me that!" Loki grabbed Stephen's hand and slapped it onto his belly and almost instantaneously, his body gave a great shudder and he slumped to the floor, breath ragged, completely and utterly exhausted.

When Loki finally spoke, there was hardly any trace of anger, only defeat and tired resignation.

"Explain to me, husband. Did you by any chance impregnate me again without my consent?"

Stephen stared at his hand now happily ensconced in the cradle of Loki's belly. "Oops?"


End file.
